A science fiction blog featuring science fiction book reviews and with frequent ramblings on fantasy, computers and the web.
Man, the Empire simply does not like the Federation…
Some great imagery in this video set over the skies of San Francisco…
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REVIEW SYNOPSIS: Though it starts strongly, the sophomore journey of the fresh-faced crew of the starship Enterprise covers too little new ground.
MY REVIEW: 
SYNOPSIS: When a rogue Starfleet agent attacks a secret archive, Captain James T. Kirk is tasked with hunting him down and terminating him.
MY REVIEW:
PROS: Good opening sequence; strong interaction between Kirk and Spock; good turns by Karl Urban and John Cho.
CONS: Anemic, especially in its revelations; far too derivative of the previous movie; laughable emotional sequences; action scenes that drag on far too long.
Star Trek Into Darkness, director J. J. Abrams’s follow-up to 2009’s Star Trek, is everything its predecessor was, only too much more so. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, though several good things work in its favor. Abrams’s gamble with making over Gene Roddenberry’s classic space opera with a new perspective on a much-beloved universe and fresh faces on seasoned characters reaped a handsome payoff, though astute audience members wondered if he could sustain what often seemed a one-picture trick. They had a right to question how a crop of young actors possibly could play roles so identified with elder thespians that they wove their dramatic tics into the fabric of their characters. Loyal fans, by contrast, knowing the full future history of the United Federation of Planets and the floor plans of the NCC-1701 U.S.S. Enterprise down to the last rivet, expressed honest trepidation at possible revisions to Roddenberry’s timeline, to say nothing of its philosophical underpinnings. The resulting Star Trek was an entertaining if occasionally brainless affair, balancing well the expectations of both a summer movie crowd and faithful Trekkers despite dangling plot lines and scientific rationales bent into configurations that would snap the most pliable rubber.
But it worked even after the novelty wore off, and proffered challenges for a sequel. Could Abrams and company make a follow-up that was less cluttered with the need to make the new timeline work and more focused on the things that made Roddenberry’s utopian vision compelling—namely, character and story?
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Middle school…the final frontier!
I’m going to take a moment to examine why I find this so nerdishly charming in so many ways…
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the heck out the Star Trek reboot. It managed to cater to existing fans while being accessible to new ones — exactly what it needed to do. That said, the film did have it’s problems…as this spoiler-laden video easily demonstrates…
We don’t often post commercials but when you get Spock 1.0 and Spock 2.0 trading quips and ripping on past events – like The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins! – it simply becomes a requirement.
Enjoy!
Lots more scenery and special effects appear in this new trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness. And — gasp! — is that a federation ship facing off against our beloved Enterprise…?
I think is a commerical for some new Star Trek videogame. Whatevs…
It’s got William Shatner fighting a Gorn!
[via GeekMom]
The second teaser trailer for Star Trek: Into Darkness has been relesed. This one includes the “hand-touching” scene that was seen in the Japanese version of the first trailer.
This one, though, has a new surprise. This one includes a link to a viral marketing campaign: AreYouThe1701.com. It’s visible in the 1080p version at full screen at the 1:07 mark — look towards the bottom of the control panel at the right. (Thanks, GeekMom!)
In episode 167 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester and his rag-tag band of panelists, discuss:
2012 YEAR IN REVIEW
Star Trek: Of Gods and Men is a three part mini-series featuring Trek alumni spanning all 5 Star Trek TV series and eight of the Trek feature films.
Twelve years have passed since Captain James Kirk was swept away by the Nexus while saving the crew of the Enterprise-B. Sadly, one year later, Captain Montgomery Scott was reported missing along with the passengers and crew of the USS Jenolen, and to this day has not been found. The remaining crewmembers of the USS Enterprise have gone their separate ways. Captain Spock and Doctor McCoy have spent the last several years on Khitomer, continuing their work to establish peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, though it is wondered if they will ever establish peace between themselves. Captain Hikaru Sulu and his Excelsior crew are on an extended mission beyond the outer reaches of the Alpha Quadrant.
Captain Pavel Chekov, although serving a high post in Starfleet Security, feels his career has stalled, leaving him to thoughts of retirement. Captain Nyota Uhura has been serving as Director of Starfleet Linguistics, a post she finds extremely interesting, though she feels there may be something missing in her life. Now, forty years after their first mission, Chekov and Uhura, along with John Harriman, former Captain of the Enterprise-B, come together for the dedication of a very special ship. However, their reunion is cut short when they receive a distress call from an all-too-familiar planet, where they meet up with an almost-forgotten face, and in an instant something happens, or rather, doesn’t happen, that presses the three friends to embark on a mission that will forever change their lives…
We linked to an audio version of this a little while back, but here’s the video on an awesome discussion between Wil Wheaton and Neil Degrasse Tyson on the science of Star Trek. Other panelists include Eugene Mirman, Paul F. Tompkins and Kristen Schaal.
Great stuff.
Pretty much what it says.
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The serious Star Trek fan in your life — even if that means you — should know about this gorgeously designed new gift book Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years by David A. Goodman, which celebrates the 150th anniversary of the founding of the United Federation of Planets.
Packed with goodies, this lavishly illustrated volume “chronicles the pivotal era leading up to Humankind’s First Contact with Vulcan in 2063, the Romulan War in 2156, the creation of the Federation in 2161, and the first 150 years of the intergalactic democracy up until the year 2311″. It covers a multitude of “alien species, decisive battles…technology…field sketches, illustrations, and reproductions of historic pieces of art from across the Galaxy”…and includes even more goodies, all packaged in a pedestal display with lights and an audio introduction by Admiral Hikaru Sulu. Oh my!
From the Amazon description, product features include:
Want a closer look? Check out these hi-res images (some of them exlusive to SF Signal) after the jump…
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In episode 163 of the SF Signal Podcast, Patrick Hester and his rag-tag band of panelists, discuss:
Star Wars, Disney, Marvel, Timothy Zahn, The Thrawn Trilogy, Star Wars: Episode 7, the Star Wars Extended Universe, Star Trek, Pathfinder Tales, Tie-In novels, George Lucas, Stargate, The X-Men, the 501st Legion, Lucasfilm, Disneyland, Family Guy, Robot Chicken, Pixar, Disney Princesses, Disneyland’s overhaul / rebranding of the iconic Submarine Ride as the new “Gungan Undersea Extravaganza’, Marvel Comics, Joe Quesada, Terry Brooks, The Sword of Shannara, Triumph over Tragedy, Attack of the Show, Newsroom, Pirates 101, Baldurs Gate, The Jar-Jar Binks Live Action Generic Non-Traditional Holiday Special with guests Tinkerbell, Wolverine and The Incredibles, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Ship Breaker, The City’s Son, and Reboots…
What, you need an introduction?
In a recent Twitter exchange the subject of Banacek came up.
For those too young to remember, Banacek was an NBC series starring George Peppard as a suave Polish investigator assigned to uncover the mystery of objects and people that went missing under seemingly impossible circumstances. It struck me that you could not pitch a character like Banacek today; He was a womanizer (the first episode features the ever-yummy Anitra Ford serving him champagne while he watches TV), smoked cigars, and his job was to help insurance companies avoid paying claims. You might pitch it as a period piece, a la Mad Men, as a window to a less-enlightened time, but never as a modern show, at least not without significant modifications. It got me thinking about what SF/F TV characters would fail as new creations today.
To be clear, I do not mean reboots or reimaginings. I mean characters existing as they did when they were originally portrayed on TV, with their personality traits and behaviors intact, and pitching them in today’s social and political climate. We’ve come quite a distance from couples sleeping in separate beds, but there are things considered taboo today that were rampant on TV past.
Here are few that came to mind…
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Jules Sherred does way more than should be legal. Most notably, she is the General Manager and Programming Director of The Look 24/7, host of the Geeky Pleasures Radio Show and the offshoot website, Geeky Pleasures, and core contributor to Wired’s GeekMom. She’s already written two non-fiction books — From The Mundane To The Insane: A Wonderful Journey Without A Destination and Tales Of A Lupus Butterfly — the partial proceeds of which go to lupus research and treatment, is working on another book called Nerd Love, and is beyond excited that Five Little Zombies And Fred is now a real thing for people to hold, read, and love. You can follow her on Twitter @GeekyJules. Also, SHE LOVES STAR TREK.
Are you a Star Trek fan? I am. FANATIC! I want to have ALL THE STAR TREK THINGS. Well, I want most of the Star Trek things. There are a couple Star Trek inspired pieces of jewelry that I really wish did not exist. But, I digress. ALL THE STAR TREK THINGS is quite a lot. I have a good number of them, strewn throughout my living quarters.
If I were to recommend only six things all Star Trek fans must own, I make the following recommendations based on portability around the house, ease of allowing you to place yourself within the Star Trek reality, and/or the ability to show off your love of Star Trek, without having to leave the house with pointy ears, or painting your skin blue and affixing antennae to your forehead. Of course, you could easily leave the house wearing a Command Gold or Science Blue shirt– never leave the house in a red shirt — and black slacks, but the following six items add a level of fun to your daily routine.
Following the last season of Doctor Who Series 6 (aired in the sates by BBC America), Stephen Moffat and the BBC announced that the new/next/2012 season would not air until the Fall. This didn’t sit well with a lot of fans of the show, including me. It felt like a really long break to take, which meant that when the show came back, it would need to rebuild the momentum from the previous seasons, and deliver some truly strong episodes to propel it forward into the 50th anniversary year.
Did it?
I’m not so sure…
The good folks at Sword and Laser (Veronica Belomont and Tom Merritt) interview LeVar Burton this week in the latest episode. LeVar talks about Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow. Also: he names his favorite science fiction author and book! Can you guess who it is?
This particular episode includes a nice shout-out for SF Signal’s Hugo win and also features a “quick burn” news item on our friend, John Anealio — with a nice plug for Functional Nerds, too. Thanks, Veronica and Tom!
Check out the episode after the jump! (It’s a very tiny jump, I promise you’ll be OK. And it’s totally worth it.)
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If there’s one thing you count on, it’s that Matthew Sanborm Smith has his finger on the pulse of odd. It must be; not only did find he find the following video, but he also shared it on SF Signal’s Facebook timeline.
The song “Bonk Bonk on the Head” is by the Star Trek Punk Rock band, No Kill I. Trek fans will recognize the Star Trek episode that inspired this…”Miri”.
