Posted Jun 08, 2009 in Movies, Science Fiction.
I am a lifelong fan of Star Trek. I love the television shows, I love the films, and I love the books. Of all the various versions of the show, my favorite is the original series from the late 1960s. I was born in 1971, so I was first exposed to Kirk, Spock and McCoy many years after they first appeared; however, it meant that I did not have to suffer the awful wilderness years that came before the release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I thought Kirk was cool. I thought Spock was... well... logical. And the USS Enterprise was the most beautiful spaceship in all of science fiction. It was, therefore, with no small amount of trepidation that I took my wife (also a fan) to see the new Star Trek film from J. J. Abrams.
I was not to be disappointed. In my personal opinion, this is the best Trek movie since 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The director and cast completely captured the essence of what Trek is all about, with spectacular action and special effects not detracting at all from deep character development and thoughtful storytelling. More crucially, however, is the fact that J. J. Abrams has crafted an origin story that fits in with Trek of old, yet provides a fresh and exciting platform on which to rebuild the great franchise.
With a new, yet instantly-identifiable USS Enterprise and a solid cast that refreshes, yet remains respectful to the original characters, Star Trek seems poised to warp into a successful future. Box office receipts, while disappointing outside the US market, have been satisfying and comparable with other “rebooted” franchises.
I was particularly impressed with the performances of Chris Pine (as Kirk) and Karl Urban (as McCoy), but all the main cast were truly superb in their roles and Zoe Saldaña expanded the role of Uhura in an interesting new direction. The few niggling criticisms I have of the film, mostly concerning holes in the plot, are really of no consequence and can be largely passed off as artistic choices. This must have been an extremely difficult movie to make, particularly with such a large, canon-obsessed fan base; however, it ticked all the boxes of this Trek fan and I cannot wait for the next one.
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Posted Mar 25, 2009 in Media, Politics.
Wikipedia is constantly being accused of having a bias toward a ''liberal'' point of view. Obviously Wikipedia has other bias issues too, such as the suggestion that it is too US-centric, but it does its best to address these with a concerted effort to eradicate systemic bias. But the politics thing is different. I have a theory about this I wish to share with my readers.
When progressively-minded Wikipedians edit contentious articles, they have a tendency to carefully and painstakingly build a consensus for their edit. Often this involves consultation of reliable sources and extensive talk page discussion. This approach is time-consuming, but in most cases successful.
Conservatively-minded editors employ a different editing strategy. They will make “drive-by edits” posting misleading or accusatory material in articles about liberals. They will use the talk pages of articles to “inform” Wikipedians of Wikipedia's terrible bias, or of the evils and sins of certain liberals. They will wave their arms around in the air and shout as loudly as they possibly can. They will create multiple Wikipedia accounts (known as sockpuppets, often using dozens of IP addresses) to try to get around Wikipedia's rules and guidelines. If discovered and blocked, they will enlist the assistance of other conservatives to do their editing and shouting on their behalf (meatpuppets). They will tell lies about everything, criticize everything, and delete anything that doesn't agree with their ideology.
Okay, this may be a slight generalization and exaggeration; however, as someone who is generally a progressively-minded person it seems like a pretty accurate description of how Wikipedia works. The conservatively-minded folks are easy to spot (thanks to their arm-waving and shouting), but they are many and they are relentless. They claim the moral high ground, yet they employ cheating and lying as normal tactics to achieve their goals. But it is because of their transparent agenda that liberally-minded folks with their methodical, rules-based approach can fend them off. I imagine that it is infuriating to be a conservative Wikipedian, because the kind of consensus-driven, community-driven, good-faith driven system employed by Wikipedia is anathema to them.
Oh well. Too bad.
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Posted Mar 17, 2009 in Media, Science Fiction, Television.
Now that the SCI FI Channel has decided to rebrand itself as SyFy so that they can justify having wrestling, reality television and other rubbish that makes it a clone of Spike, US television needs a new channel that is dedicated to science fiction. There must be a market for it, given the huge popularity of Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, etc. At the very least, it could be a combination of science fiction and fantasy. I envisage content like the following:
- Original science fiction series and mini series
- Original fantasy series and mini series
- Science fiction and fantasy movies
- Biography-style shows about SF and fantasy writers, producers and directors
- Interviews with SF and fantasy writers, producers and directors
- Behind-the-scenes shows covering SF and fantasy television and film
- An SF and fantasy-themed quiz show, perhaps with genre celebrity specials
- Reruns of older SF and fantasy programming
Obviously, the hard part is sourcing content. Channels like SyFy can source material from their parent companies, but what is needed is a channel that is independent of any one big content producer so that deals for programming can be made with any of them - sort of like how a free house operates in the British pub system.
Perhaps traditional television is not the right media of choice. A subscription or advertiser-funded internet channel may be more appropriate, although securing international rights to programming is difficult, necessitating region-blocking DRM technology or something. Whatever it turns out to be, something is certainly needed. As long as it's available in high definition and doesn't have wrestling, it has to be good.
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Posted Mar 03, 2009 in Blogging.
Since I've been so lazy blogging recently, I thought I would sign up for the Twitter microblogging service. At some point in the future, I'll try to add a “Twitterstream” to this blog so that you can follow my tweets here. What eventually convinced me to do it was that I had started following the tweets of various political pundits.
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Posted Mar 02, 2009 in Family, Miscellaneous, Personal, Politics.
From a personal standpoint, the beginning of 2009 has been fairly uneventful for me. I am almost over what has seemed like an endless cold, which I first contracted in January. It forced me to postpone a wisdom tooth extraction, which I suppose I will have to reschedule soon. I am still in post-Christmas shape, which means I need to do much more in the way of exercise. Fortunately, my family have kindly arranged for me to get a bicycle for my forthcoming birthday. With spring on the way and plenty of places to ride nearby, I hope to start improving my overall fitness.
Politics has been crazy over the last couple of months. I cannot recall an occasion when so much happened in such a short space of time - the pace of the new Obama administration is relentless. Let us hope the legislation designed to improve liquidity in the financial system and stimulate the economy will lead to a reversal of the alarming negative growth and job losses.
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