Casual Friday, Casual DIE Day!

Insert Erection!

The dancing! The singing! The bearded guy in the bathtub! Are we on a star trek or a pride parade?!

STAR TREK: INSURRECTION is another example of an excellent idea – and I’m not being sarcastic! – ruined by small screen sensibilities and mediocre production values. The very first TREK movie, STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979), also had a magnificent “idea” but could not convey the gravitas of that idea, buried beneath the silliness of computer caramel swirls and Shatner death-pauses.

INSURRECTION, the third TREK film featuring THE NEXT GENERATION (TNG) cast, pokes at the very conscience of America; at that fascist idea of a belligerent alien civilization overpowering a weaker indigenous one. Written by Rick Berman and Michael Pillar, it is framed to constantly remind us of America “relocating” the Native tribes of the Land so courteously. So killingly.

The Federation is aiding a bunch of belligerent aliens with ugly loose skin called Son’a, that want to overrun a planet already inhabited by a race called Ba’ku. The planet’s rings emit a regenerative radiation that keeps the Ba’ku young, which is like catnip to the Botox-challenged Son’a.

But Federation captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) heads an INSURRECTION with his crew of girl scouts aboard the Starship Enterprise-E – against the Federation itself, reminding the Federation leader, Admiral Old Guy (Anthony Zerbe – watch out! He tried to kill KISS!) that by “relocating” the Ba’ku the Federation is contravening the Prime Directive; the prime directive being a No Interference Clause regarding civilizations led by people who are hot.

Head MILF of the Ba’ku is Anij (Donna Murphy), who is around 300 years old, but looks a smokin’ 42. She touches Picard’s smooth bald head sensually: “I wonder if you’re aware of the trust that you engender?” And we wonder how long it’s gonna take this starship captain to just lean in and insurrect her. But he keeps talking, which is the surest way to lose that ancient minge: “Some of the darkest chapters in my world involve the forced relocation of a small group of people to satisfy the desires of a larger one.” (Though it is more proof of Picard’s smoother approach to women, as opposed to Kirk’s tackle and grope. And speaking of Kirk, the Ba’ku main man is a Shatner lookalike – Daniel Hugh Kelly!)

Admiral Old Guy cockblocks Picard to continue the relocation argument: “It’s just 600 people” being forcefully moved off-planet. With a boner the size of a baseball bat, Picard retorts, “How many people does it take before it becomes wrong? A thousand, fifty thousand, a million?” Old Guy replies, uncomfortable around Picard’s erection, “These people were not indigenous to this planet. They will be relocated to continue their evolution–” Picard shouts, obviously near orgasm: “Who the HELL are we to determine the next course of evolution for these people?!” And what happens next is too sexy to bear.

Pulled pork killed Mozart!

The Son’a are led by Ru’afo (F. Murray Abraham in a stretchy, loose-skinned face). The Federation owns the planet, but Ru’afo has the technology to harvest the regenerative radiation from the rings. Old Guy deludes himself it’s to help billions of people, but Ru’afo just wants to pick up chicks again. The process would wipe out life on the planet – that’s why the relocation effort, that’s why the unholy alliance. But Old Guy shoulda guessed the Son’a had ulterior motives because – ugly people are evil, right?

Such is the conundrum facing Enterprise-E and its cast of glorified extras: feeling youth’s invigoration returning (which accounts for Picard’s singing and dancing), whilst knowing they have to give that up to stay principled. Geordi (Levar Burton) is regaining his sight being in the proximity of the rings, but would gladly give it up to peer through an air filter for ethics; Worf (Michael Dorn) is going through puberty, because even in space, we need a token Klingon; the two window dressing females (Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis) feel their boobs firm up, but the rings don’t seem to have improved their abysmal acting; and speaking of boobs, there’s first mate Riker (Jonathan Frakes), whom we meet coming onto Sirtis creepily, and are then tortured with the sight of him in a bathtub with her shaving his body hair. While the most beloved TNG character, Data (Brent Spiner), learns how to roll in the hay, literally. He makes the point that due to feeling rejuvenated and young, the crew feel frisky enough to rebel.

Jonathan Frakes directs, with the eye of a man well-versed in television sitcoms. After trying his hand at a few TNG TV shows, starting in 1990, his first directorial feature film was 1996’s STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT. His second film is this one. And since then (at the time of writing, February 2017), Frakes has directed only TV and two alarmingly mediocre movies (CLOCKSTOPPERS 2002 and THUNDERBIRDS 2004). Any wonder then, that his sensibilities run congruent with TV framing, TV production, TV acting and TV cockblocking?

Once the premise/allegory is set, the rest of the movie is a tiresome rehash of lasers going “pishew pishew,” warships “roaring” through the vacuum of space, explosions onboard starships with electrical sparks flying out of equipment to signify damage, camera tilts to signify being hit with lasers that go “pishew,” bad guys talking when they should be shooting, and the Enterprise-E battling the Son’a ship in a nebula cloud that ignorantly resembles a water-vapor cloud in Earth’s sky, only redder. I can’t even begin to explain how Trekkies have not the faintest clue why there is No Science in STAR TREK…

Even in the future, and even on a spaceship where living space is at a premium, Picard finds air ducts large enough for a man to crawl through.

Funniest moment in the film must surely go to F. Murray Abraham, who, as he is being vaporized, gives a scream that is half-rooster, half-dolphin.

Picard gets the girl – but must leave her when the mission is completed. But it’s not as tragic as he makes it sound. In a universe where warp speed exists, there is no need for goodbyes. If people are only a few seconds away from each other via warp drive or teleportation, there is no such thing as tyranny of distance or time. Picard can come back and see her any time he damn well pleases. He’s only making that excuse about “leaving” because he wants to hit it and quit it. (Hmm, he’s more like Shatner than we thought!) We boyz, Picard. We got your back.

When is he going to admit he only started insurrection to insert his surrection.

END

Unnecessary Racket!

Everyone gives Jonathan Frakes more rope than he deserves as a director. No wonder he hangs himself with STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT.

This first true STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION feature film has an illogical time-loop plot, the same half-assed TV acting we’ve come to expect from the TNG crew, and five-time Wimbledon winner, Bjorn Borg.

With production values just a hair’s breadth above the TV series from whence they sprang, director Frakes (who also co-stars as the Enterprise’s first officer) helms a slow-moving, disjointed adventure that finds Earth of the future overrun by Borg – a race of cyborgs with a hive mind – with the Enterprise crew having to go back in time to the first contact humans had with aliens, to ensure Biff doesn’t get the Almanac.

They follow a probe through a time warp and someone says, “Blah blah blah vortex” and Frakes says, unironically, “That makes sense.” Actually, no, but that doesn’t stop them getting exactly where they want to go, which seems to be some hybrid Old West/FIREFLY-type village where the source music is all Generic Blues Guitar Solos.

James Cromwell is the scientist from this “ancient” Earth, a drunk who won’t be separated from his Generic Blues Guitar Solo tapes, whom the Enterprise crew must coax into following the correct timeline to ensure the Borg don’t win Wimbledon a sixth time. Alfre Woodward is Cromwell’s miscast lady friend, who doesn’t seem to remember how to act; a young Neal McDonough is an expendable crew member.

Brent Spiner is Data, as always, the most empathetic cast member even though he’s the crew’s android; LeVar Burton is Geordi Air Filter, as always, reminding us that ROOTS was a lifetime of shame ago; and Jonathan Frakes is Riker aka Number Two (in rank and smug acting ability). The usual cast of glorified extras round out the cast: Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis.

Interface intercourse.

Written by series regulars Brannon Braga and Ronald Moore, one of the subplots is that Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has been “infected” by the plodding, zombie-like Borg (since his assimilation in the TNG TV episode Best Of Both Worlds, when he woke up as the six-time winner of the French Open) and so is constantly in mental battle with his bad self. As the famous slogan reads, “Resistance is futile.” But the writers cannot convey this inner turmoil compellingly. As an example of lame contradictory writing: at one point, Picard’s whole crew advises him to blow up a Borg ship, “If we blow the ship, we destroy the Borg!” but Picard wants to chase them instead, because… Ahab – white whale – literature! Picard: “They conquer worlds, we fall back; they assimilate races, we fall back. The line must be drawn here!” Yes, that’s why you should BLOW THE SHIP, Captain Confusion!

The Queen of the Borg (Alice Krige) is an erotic, slithering fantasy; with a detachable torso and serpentine sensuality, she steals into the circuit city pants of – Data!

Two separate storylines bifurcate and help the movie make even less sense that it was already not making. While Picard and expendables try to stop the Borg on the Enterprise, Number Two and Kunta Kinte try to fix the timeline with a skeptical Cromwell. Stunted direction and haphazard editing ensues. There is a stupid 1940’s speakeasy scene where Picard goes Al Capone on some Borg, which completely ruined the movie’s tone as badly as John McEnroe ruined Borg at the 1981 Wimbledon final. Why is this scene even here? You can-NOT be serious!

The Borg: triumphant against all humanity.

FIRST CONTACT is supposedly one of the “good” STAR TREKs, but apart from some disturbing elements with the Queen and the hive mind mentality, it’s a pile of trash conceptually, and a B-movie production-wise.

When our heroes see the future Earth populated by Borg, it means the Borg won. Right? “Population: 9 billion. All Borg.” So in this future, the Borg launch a probe at Earth’s past, to guarantee that they stay winners. But what makes them think something in the past can affect their present? My point is: if the Borg had already won, why send a probe back in the first place? By sending it back, they actually create the opportunity to DEFEAT them and change the present. Which happens. Which means that the Borg LOSE the future. But they’ve already won! Why did the writers create this conceptual time-loop mess?

In the end, aliens land on Earth and Cromwell stares wide-eyed, “My God, they’re really from another world!” Why, because they’re wearing shiny robes? Wait until this Vulcan unleashes his pointy ears and drops a Live Long and Prosper on you!

Borg retired after the 1981 Wimbledon and went into high fashion. As with his tennis career, resistance was futile.

END

Teddy Fuxspin.

That dirt-talkin’ beer-drinkin’ pot-smokin’ bad boy bear is back in TED 2 – badder, bolder, drunker and… seriouser?

Seth MacFarlane makes the sequel to his R-rated TED (2012) even more R-rated. My biggest fear with this followup to the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever was that the studio would castrate raconteur MacFarlane; that someone would wear him down with money and political favors and handjobs, but thankfully, writer-director MacFarlane and his co-writers Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild were allowed to steer into the curve. Rainman definitely into the curve…

Teddy bear Ted (voiced and motion-captured by MacFarlane) and his new bride Tami-Lynn (Jessica Barth, the Perfect Woman: curvy, blonde, foul-mouthed and white trashed) decide to have a baby for the best of reasons – to stop arguing in their jaded marriage. With the help of his human pal John (Mark Wahlberg, as sassy as ever), Ted tries to find a sperm donor, but then a greater obstacle arises. To qualify as a parent, Ted must prove he is a “person” in a court of law. Enter love interest lawyer Samantha (Amanda Seyfried) – who loses the case! When he is declared nothing but “property” Ted is targeted by the perverse Donny (Giovanni Ribisi), who wants to take him apart to discover his life essence and mass-market it.

Yes, under all the swear words and jizz jokes and genitalia references, there’s an actual story.

TED 2 is awash in guffawing humor. Even with pacing and tonal problems in its courtroom scenes, hold it up to any so-called American comedy and it will wipe the floor with it like a dirty jizz-rag (sorry, just caught up in the Ted ethos). A riotous mix of lewd humor (“There are no chicks with dicks – only guys with tits!”), smartass punches (“You’re covered in rejected black men’s semen. You look like a Kardashian!”), and internet searches that bring up black cocks. Always black cocks.

Setting a blistering pace with the raunchy gags, and creating an easy chemistry between Ted and John (who is relegated to an almost supporting role here), MacFarlane then stretches his welcome by tackling social issues. While Ted is trying to prove his personhood in court, the cheeky tone is lost, even though Ted is given lines to try to keep it light: “I’m standin’ up for me, and I’m standin’ up for the homos!” But why is Ted’s case being analogized to civil rights and being litigated seriously? This courtroom scene is merely a “beat” that the movie must hit that will set up the comedic situations to follow; that beat being: Ted Is Found to Be NOT A Person – but it is laboriously arrived at, with “soaring courtroom speeches” on the “gift of human rights” and even some Mark Santorum straw man arguments, like “Does your dog deserve human rights? Your toaster?” MacFarlane tries (unsuccessfully) to analogize Ted’s predicament to slavery and gay rights. Uh, no. We find ourselves unwillingly and unnecessarily entrenched in a “courtroom drama” as if this was the point of TED 2! I’d rather be back in Tom Brady’s bedroom with Ted and John, trying to steal sperm from Tom Brady’s golden cock.

Once TED 2 wraps its courtroom scenes, it extricates itself from quicksand and moves back to its welcome filthy banality.

Patrick Stewart narrates again, Sam Jones is Flash Gordon again, Patrick Warburton is a big gay galoot again, Giovanni Ribisi is sinister again… the only person not again is Mila Kunis (who couldn’t participate because – coincidentally – she was having a baby!); written out unceremoniously as John’s divorced ex-wife.

MacFarlane uses the bond he forged with Liam Neeson on A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST (2014) to pull a favor on a droll Neeson cameo. John Carroll Lynch is a CEO of a toy company trying to steal Ted (there’s a giant TRANSFORMER model in his office – a wink to Wahlberg?), and Michael Dorn worfs all over Warburton as his gay lover.

Morgan Freeman is a power lawyer who argues that Ted IS a person because he has “an ability to understand complex emotion and a capacity for empathy…” Either that, or he’s a chimpanzee. There’s even an orchestra swell! Again, the legal scenes detract from the love story subplot of John and “Gollum-eyed” Samantha, or the silly gags referencing THE BREAKFAST CLUB, JURASSIC PARK or CONTACT.

Wahlberg lets loose a comedic side we’ve never seen before, even in the original TED. We’ve seen him grow from the blank-faced punk in FEAR (1996) to a true comedy force in DATE NIGHT (2010) and THE OTHER GUYS (2010), where he stole the thunder from professional comedians Steve Carell and Will Ferrell). Now he’s just bodyswerving into it, working that usually blunt “pushing-his-words-out” style to his advantage. (Before this feature, they ran the trailer to DADDY’S HOME (2015), re-teaming Wahlberg with Ferrell in another ridiculous comedy where Wahlberg is effortlessly stealing Ferrell’s scenes.)

Reminding us of Stewie (from FAMILY GUY, another of MacFarlane’s creations), Ted trips the light fantastic with a troupe of 100 real life tightly choreographed dancers, in an incredibly detailed, old-school dance sequence (a la Gene Kelly). The complaints over this sequence being overlong or boring are irrelevant; firstly, it serves as background to the opening titles; it’s funny and cute and technically amazing and give these artistic things their due, you impatient, pointless e-generation!

I’m still at a loss, though, how Tami-Lynn can “love” this bear with a woman’s urgent love. Even if she loves him in a toy-ish way, she’s actually expressing her love in a groin-ish way – kissing him on the lips and alluding to sexual congress. But what do they do after kissing on the mouth? Is he inserting his arm to gratify those adult human urges?

If Ted can’t keep you satisfied, oh glorious Tami-Lynn, remember, my whole body is shaped to please…

END

Papa’s got a brand new bag – I mean, wife.

Due to THE SANTA CLAUSE 2, Santa Claus must find a wife or he will magically stop being Santa Claus, presumably leaving one billion spoiled brats on Earth wailing in frenzy for their free toys.

It’s eight years later – in real time and movie time – since THE SANTA CLAUSE (1994), and the original cast return to make ass-faces of themselves once more in this stupider sequel: Tim Allen as Scott Calvin aka Santa Claus; Wendy Crewson as his ex-wife (eschewing that abominable hairstyle from the last movie and now looking pretty damn MILF-y), still inexplicably married to psychiatrist Neil (Judge Reinhold, out-acted by any inanimate objects he stands next to); David Krumholtz is head elf Bernard, and Eric Lloyd remains Calvin’s son Charlie, no more a cute kiddie but an angst-y teen trying to impress a chick by graffitiing his school. He is busted by the new cast member – a blond, blue-eyed hourglass named Carol – “carol” get it? – (Elizabeth Mitchell), who is supposedly the hardnosed school principal, but the only people who don’t immediately figure she’s Santa’s romantic interest are the under-seven-year-olds. Ironic, since Santa’s sweatshop is still populated by sprightly elves and hot dwarfen maidens who are hundreds of years old but look seven.

In THE SANTA CLAUSE 2, as in its predecessor, we discover another duplicitous small print clause  – called the “Missus Clause” – which demands Santa procure a mate or he will lose his magic, his beard, his weight and status – in essence, un-become Santa Clause, and… what then? No more Santa forever? Hooray, I say! But what about the stranglehold on the Santa Brand that the Keepers Of The Klaus Bloodline were trying to retain with that small print on the original clause? This Missus Clause has the potential to pointlessly end that bloodline with its illogical penalty. If we get into the heads of Santa’s evil overlords, we can comprehend why they would force Santa to “marriage” – to legally spawn new Klaus blood for their unholy altar. But if for any reason he does not marry or mate, why make the penalty the dissolution of Santa Claus altogether? We can understand why a penalty would seem necessary to the provincial Keepers who penned these edicts (it is their nature to grasp and threaten), yet couldn’t it be something other than “de-Santafication”? How does ending Santa benefit anyone?

Okay, let’s just go with it, as “delightful, endearing family fun.” Scott Calvin has sold his soul so wholeheartedly to the Santa brand that now he doesn’t want to lose this dream job where he can feel up legal-age women with the bodies of seven-year-olds. But now he might be back at Square One again, forced to reconstitute his life as a rich toy executive, since his irresponsible elf (Spencer Breslin) only told him about the Missus Clause at the last moment; he only has 28 days to find a wife. And we presume he is looking for one with a congenital mental defect and a throwaway career and life, or how else would she willingly cleave to this guy she’s just met?

So Calvin creates an impostor plastic Santa to fool the sweatshop elves into thinking he is still at the North Pole – a ridiculous, shark-jumping, pointless subplot – while he travels back to Earth, meaning White America, to sniff out a spouse. And where everyone has inexplicably reverted back to denying Santa’s existence … “Reverted back”? But how can I claim they all KNEW Santa and now proactively deny his existence? Well, remember in THE SANTA CLAUSE, when Santa made a slow flyover a suburban neighborhood, dropping presents from his sleigh, with innumerable witnesses including adults, children, police and at least one psychiatrist? How then, in this sequel, can anyone claim a disbelief in Santa Claus? My head’s about to explode again… Did not one person report that singular event to authorities, the news, their workmates, just plain boastful gossip at a drunken party? You’d think that with all the contention over whether Santa “exists,” that evidence like that would spread around the world with the speed of a flying sleigh. (It would at least explain all those mysterious gifts under the tree that neither you nor your wife bought, and that you’ve never questioned until now because you’re obviously an idiot, like everyone in any Santa movie.) The only bigger news would be the Second Coming of Jesus H. Christ.

But no. In THE SANTA CLAUSE 2, here we are, back at Square Dumb again.

Only Neil, MILF and Charlie remember that Calvin is Claus. Principal Carol is one of those grownups who doesn’t believe, yet she reveals to Scott on their first date (–klaxons! High Maintenance Alert!) that “in school, I believed in Santa Claus so much that I would get in fights with kids who said he didn’t exist…” Was Santa being derelict and not providing free gifts to those bullies? How could he “not exist” if he’s bringing gifts? I don’t get it! I don’t get it! I DON’T GET IT! WHY CAN’T THESE FILMMAKERS UNDERSTAND THIS PARADOX THEY ARE CREATING?

Also, Calvin uses MAGIC to woo Carol. When we real men EARN our money and give stuff to women, their gold-digging minds “fall in love” with us (that’s the natural way of things), but does it count if you “magically” give stuff to women and they feel the same way? Scott conjures for Carol a sleigh ride, hot cocoa, a very localized snowfall, some dolly shit she wanted as a girl, a kiss under mistletoe, and – most importantly – someone to listen to her boring yapping. And she “falls in love” with him. (You don’t get out much, do you, Carol?) What does the small print say about the means towards acquiring a wife? Is the marriage valid if arrived at via magic? After one date, Calvin tells Carol, “I love you.” And she falls for it. So they’re both virgins?

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Toy Santa (played by Tim Allen in a plastic mask) turns dictator, puts ALL the children on Earth on the Naughty List and orders giant toy soldiers to takeover the workshop… uh, that’s right, he executes a junta overthrow of a place he is already in charge of. But it turns out these toy soldiers are more ineffectual than even STAR WARS Stormtroopers, as they are eventually taken down by little girls throwing toys at them, being sprayed with silly string and being kicked in the shins. Thanks to the five writers for that ingenious plot that went absolutely nowhere for no reason. Michael Lembeck is director. I just wanted you to know who to blame.

The number of times we hear the phrase “true spirit of Christmas” you’d think that someone might actually know the true spirit of Christmas was a pagan agricultural festival called Solstice, and mistakenly conflated with trees, gift-giving, a fat saint with a penchant for chimneys, and the birth of a fucking savior!

His little niece asks him, “Uncle Scott, are you Santa Clause?” He denies it. Again, I don’t get it! Why the secret identity? Why plant this indecisiveness in kids’ heads, so that they grow up to be confused adults that will make contradictory Santa movies?

By the time he is married to Carol, Calvin has returned to normal-weight Tim Allen, his beard having disappeared. As soon as he says, “I do” he balloons out to Santa proportions immediately. By magic. As in SHALLOW HAL (2001), a protagonist was attracted to an inshape person – who immediately balloons into a fatty boomsticks. And the filmmakers are asking us to believe the protagonist is still attracted to that person as a fatty. Over the years, we all tend to still be attracted to people whom we knew when we were all skinny together. But this is not the case here! What would YOU do if your 100-pound girlfriend or 190-pound boyfriend suddenly ballooned out to a contestant on the Jerry Springer Show? Is Carol still attracted to this fat sweaty milk-and-cookie addict? Disney says yes. It must be true.

In the last movie, they told Calvin: “Seeing isn’t believing – believing is seeing.”

Oh, I get it now: Ignorance isn’t bliss – bliss is ignorance.

END

Nature vs. Nurture vs. Nemesis.

Jonathan Frakes is the most useless, insipid character in the STAR TREK universe. There, I said it. (Send your hate mail to 80 Vanilla Street, Who-Gives-A-Shit, CA, Stardate 2350.) Now let’s talk about useless, insipid movies…

STAR TREK NEMESIS is the fourth and last The Next Generation (TNG) adventure, continuing the STAR TREK legacy with beige talking, TV action hero poses and little to no adventure.

Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and his crew of unlikeable and colorless characters encounter a Picard clone, Shinzon (Tom Hardy), who wants to destroy the Earth with his crew of crunchy face-masks and his badass leather longcoat.

Earlier, on a desert planet (where they apparently break the Prime Directive by dune-buggying around and shooting at natives) Picard, Data (Brent Spiner) and Worf (Michael Dorn) locate and collect pieces of a dissembled prototype of Data.

Thus does director Stuart Baird set up the most stunning, evocative, boring, inane story of two mirror images – Picard’s and Data’s – and the philosophical bullshit that goes with them. Picard’s clone Shinzon is a nefarious, clinical warmonger who is slowly dying from the cloning process (or some other plot device) and wants Picard around for pieces of him; while Data’s prototype, called B-4 (hah! I get it!), is a nice guy, but retarded. Did these mirror images become this way through Nature or Nurture?

Picard tries to wean his clone off his conquest jones, “There is something in you that is better than destroying a whole planet.” But Shinzon was so deeply scarred when he was tortured by his creators that nothing can curb his revenge. Ah yes, his NURTURE was through torment, thus becoming Picard’s NEMESIS! Now they can fight over who wears the strap-on tonight.

Speaking of strap-ons, Jonathan Frakes. He can’t wait for his new wife to use one on him – oh, this tall drink of fracking water is married? In an opening sequence only a TNG fanatic would find endearing, we found the Enterprise crew on the deck of an old world sailing vessel during William Riker’s (Frakes) wedding to boring-as-a-blowup Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis). The fact that they’re on a hologram ship, dressed in 1800’s nautical uniforms is so unbelievably pointless it almost overshadows the fact this is a nothing plot point, that goes nowhere, that no one cares about.

Data tries to tap into his copy’s mind, and discovers a childlike innocence; B-4 was manipulated by his creators for their own ends, and then discarded. It’s a touching  moment, revealing B-4 is not malevolent in and of himself, but an unwitting Manchurian instrument. Ah, so it’s NATURE, because his destructive purpose was programmed into him, like our DNA programs our natures. In this poignant sequence, we realize that the only emotional connection we feel to anyone in this flat film is towards the ANDROID.

The baby-writers (John Logan, Rick Berman, Brent Spiner), create problems with a million solutions, then try to solve those problems by using the dumbest solution. Like Republicans in congress. Shinzon’s ship rams Picard’s Enterprise. As usual – still no seatbelts! “All hands, brace for impact!” in 23rd century parlance means: whichever desk you’re sitting at, just grip the edge of it a little tighter. While people are falling over from not gripping their desks tight enough, Shinzon’s Viceroy (Ron Perlman in a crunchy mask) is wandering the bowels of the Enterprise beating on Riker. Which means it has the importance of an administrative decision to change letterheads – and just as much energy. Thus, even the Viceroy’s character is pointless – he and Riker could just as well be girly-slapping each other in another movie. Their outcome – whatever it was – didn’t matter one jot to what Picard had to ultimately do: make up a reason to put himself in danger to contrive an ending for the film.

Shinzon deploys a Weapon Of Mass Destruction to blow the Enterprise to atoms. Trouble is, it takes seven minutes for the weapon to deploy, with an ostentatious flowering open of deathly wings that would scare even heartless murderers like Dick Cheney – and is contingent on the ship they’re going to disintegrate not fleeing in warp drive or just driving away slowly. So the Enterprise complies with these Geneva Conventions on Standing Still and doesn’t move, while we wait… wait… wait…

Trying to bolster his reputation as action man, and quash the meme that Kirk was the zenith of decisive Spock-chops, Picard beams aboard Shinzon’s ship kicking ass and taking names, in that sixteenth-century fisticuffs style that seems to work on 23rd century aliens.. Meanwhile that weapon is deploying… deploying… deploying…

Of the mirrored subplots, Picard must destroy his copy, while Data finds a sad peace with his. We even shed a hidden tear for Data as he makes a life-altering choice for B-4 in the film’s explosive climax. Ironically, the only element the filmmakers can use to tug on our human hearts, is the non-human heart of Data. How must that feel to the rest of the cast of glorified extras? Spiner (Data) seems to have written all the best stuff for himself! (Hey, is that weapon ready yet?…)

Thank you, STAR TREK, for going out on a bland film with one likeable character that isn’t even human. NEMESIS being the last of the exhausted TNG franchise, they will thankfully never again Make It So.

END

Generation Pap.

The Death of Kirk! You know these filmmakers are going to hell for this, right?

Data Poff

STAR TREK: GENERATIONS was meant to showcase the TREK TV spinoff, THE NEXT GENERATION; instead, the singular event on all our minds is how Kirk is going to eat it. The Original Series fans would dread the moment, yet obsessively study it with rubbernecker fascination, while the NEXT GEN freakazoids were just waiting to flush Kirk’s impulse power out of their wormholes once and for all.

The legacy itself defeats the movie. But if it were not for the legacy, Kirk’s downfall would be even less of an anticlimax than it already is. Captain James T. Kirk is but a minor tangential character in this mix of annoying and innocuous characters. His death is meaningless – it serves no plot point and it is not a sacrifice, although it is written heroically to look that way.

Meanwhile, there’s a bad movie going on…

Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) of the 24th Century and Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) of the 23rd Century join forces to battle a scientist named Soren (Malcolm McDowell), who is destroying stars and planets in order to catch an energy ribbon called The Nexus, buzzing through the universe and transporting everyone it touches to their personal fantasy realms – you know, like the Christian version of Heaven.

(Christian Heaven: attained through a grisly process we call Death. Like Christian Heaven, the Nexus is something terrible on this side of Death, then Paradise on the other side. Everyone wants to get to Paradise – but they don’t want to get there by actually dying! Isn’t that just like a Christian?)

Movie opens with Chekov (Walter Koenig), Scotty (James Doohan) and Kirk attending the maiden launch of Enterprise-B. Crowded by paparazzi on the bridge, in a strange mix of art-imitating-life, they meet unseasoned Captain Harriman (Alan Ruck – Cameron from FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF; hope he doesn’t do to the Enterprise what he did to his dad’s Ferrari…).

Almost immediately, Enterprise-B must rescue two ships caught in splashy special effects – The Nexus. After beaming refugees aboard, Harriman has no idea how to outrun the Nexus (which is why he left all the planning to Ferris) and abdicates command to Kirk, who plants his ever-widening girth in the Captain’s seat with a shit-eating grin on his face, before he begrudgingly gives it back to Harriman and reverts to his Action Hero idiom to save the day. Exactly like Spock’s death in STAR TREK II, Kirk is killed by a McGuffin: he runs downstairs to Do Something Jargony To Some Jargony Thingy – and is blown into space…

78 Years Later…

We meet the crew of THE NEXT GENERATION (TNG) in a tiresome sailing ship sequence that only TNG fans’ mothers could love. Then Captain Picard leads Riker (smug Jonathan Frakes), Data (silvery Brent Spiner), Geordi (visored LeVar Burton), Crusher (insipid Gates McFadden) and other passengers, on a rescue mission to a dead space station, where they pick up a scientist named Soren, who immediately causes trouble with his devious Nexus plans and British accent.

Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) appears with a funny hat any time Picard needs information about the Nexus. She explains that if you fall into it, “you’re not going to care about anything and not going to want to come back.” But it’s the old SUPERMAN II syndrome: “You’ll lose your powers forever” – until he wants them back, at which point, he goes and gets them. So too, when Picard finds himself in the Nexus as the father of five kids from a Charles Dickens novel, with an attractive (but no doubt, stretchmarked) wife, he retains all his faculties and decides to leave.

Guinan actually appears in the Nexus with Picard – driving the movie further into B-movie dipping sauce with each idiotic line, “I am onboard the Enterprise, but I’m also here… Think of me as an echo of the person you know.” That explains everything! Then she tells Picard he can simply leave… to any point in time he chooses!

So when ships are caught in the Nexus and destroyed, we know for a fact the passengers have been transported to their own slice of heaven… so what’s all the fuss? “It isn’t Real,” says Kirk later. But what IS real after Death? Would a robe and wings do it for you?

Meanwhile, unimportant subplots seem to be happening in another movie: Data (TNG’s emotionless Vulcan analog) implants an emotion chip and becomes almost as annoying as Jar Jar Binks; ugly Klingon bitches with large, beautiful ta-tas ally with Soren, kidnap Geordi and blow up Picard’s Enterprise, which crash-lands with all the TNG overactors. 78 years later, and still not a seatbelt in sight, as everyone falls out of chairs, climbs back on or stands at a railing, only to fall down again. As Arthur C. Clarke once said, the technology is so advanced, it’s like magic!

The crashed Enterprise is sucked into the Nexus, portrayed as a horrible, explosive death – but the Funny Hat Exposition Lady just said it was Paradise…

All the TREK movies center around McGuffins – none more so than GENERATIONS, whose writers (Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore) cop to this lazy methodology in the audio commentary: somehow get Soren to the mountain with the missile, somehow team Picard with Kirk, somehow kill Kirk – no reasoning, no logic, no sense, no science.

For example: if you have the power to go anywhere in time, Jean-Luc, go back to when you first picked up Soren – and don’t. Why go back to the moment of desperation as seconds tick away, trying to stop Soren firing a missile into the heart of a star? If you can pick up Kirk to help you, why not pick up your whole crew?

The writers embarrassingly admit to unnecessary jargon as well. “I’d like to run a level three diagnostic on the port plasma relays. I think one of the generators is fluctuating.” There’s a thrilled extra walking around with a SAG card now. And the geeks have to add another faux-scientific tech detail to their overwrought diagrams of Picard’s Enterprise-D.

And, as usual, NO SCIENCE: Distances in space films are always misrepresented, and by misrepresented, I mean the filmmakers don’t have a clue why space is called space. At the speed Soren’s missile is launched from the ground, it should arrive at the targeted noonday star in approximately ten Earth days. Instead, it gets there in the time it takes to read this sentence. Oh, that’s right, they have faster-than-light travel in the 24th century… if that’s the case, why doesn’t Soren simply commandeer a spaceship at phaserpoint and fly it into the Nexus, which travels at sub-light speed? Sorry, that would be logical. And Spock never made it past the bad script…

a meh death…

Picard leaves his Dickens Thanksgiving and meets the Priceline Negotiator in the Nexus, convincing him of Soren’s danger, whereupon they leave the Nexus and stop Soren through the technological method of fisticuffs.

And Leonard Nimoy saw this scene and wept– I mean, laughed.

Now there are Grand Deaths, there are Shakespearean Deaths and Kurosawan Deaths, there are Sacrificial Deaths and Heroic Deaths – but even Leonard Nimoy would call Kirk’s death “gratuitous.” A Meh Death. An unnecessary marketing ploy which ruined an otherwise mediocre movie. Innocuous demise aside, let me get this straight: if Kirk had NOT died, would he have lived out the rest of his life in the 24th century as a fifth wheel alongside THE NEXT GENERATION?

In true Shatner fashion, Kirk squeezes the cheese from his death scene – both times. In his book, Star Trek Movie Memories, Shatner tells of the tear-jerking moment he felt that his torch was being passed: when replying to Picard asking for his help, “Who am I to argue with the Captain of the Enterprise?”

STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY was undoubtedly the best of the Original Cast Treks, and if we could boldly go and call STAR TREK: GENERATIONS an Original Cast Trek (for its inclusion of merely three Original Cast), then it is surely the worst. Nonetheless, Kirk’s dying words sum up the odysseys of STAR TREK Compleat: “It was fun.”

And who are we to argue with the Captain of the Enterprise?

END