Fulltime Casual - An Australian Film and TV Podcast

So, the good Peter and myself were able to see that presentation on the new Trek film that’s been doing the rounds. It consisted of a brief intro by a chap from Paramount (who admitted ruefully to have presided over the release of all of the other Trek films), then about 35-odd minutes of footage in four scenes, each introduced by the ever-personable onscreen mug of director JJ Abrams. The whole affair seemed at heart to be a marketing tool to get folks like us to voluntarily become part of the hype machine surrounding the film, and… well, I do believe it worked.

If I had to distill into a single phrase what we saw - it rocked.

Visually, it’s the shit - the actors are all hot young things, the sets, virtual and practical, look fantastic, the effects are spectacular (and not used just for their own sake, it seems) and, judging by the scene where a bunch of our heroes parachute from orbit onto some kind of weapony platformy thing and then get into fights with bad guys, it’s what Abrams does best; expertly-executed, visceral, exciting action. It was - dare I use phrases so hackneyed? - adrenaline-fuelled, edge-of-the seat stuff.

Well - that’ll be points towards gainful employment writing copy for DVD covers.

Great.

And the characters? Well, they seem carefully-realised young versions of the old stalwarts, except full of beans and new energy. Kirk swaggers his way around like the world owes him someth-, uh, everything, Spock is constructed entirely of logic and wry eyebrow-moves, Bones is all gruff practicality. Pegg is charming and funny as Scottie, Chekov seems to be on board primarily for gags about his accent. They’re goofy gags, sure - but when did Trek have anything but goofy gags?

When I reported this to two friends of mine who are big fans of the Shatner original (one of whom is also a friend of the show), however, they expressed a different sentiment. I love the old series, or at least I thought I did until my enthusiasm was torn apart as though by a <planet>-ian <fictious monster>-onax with teeth and claws of <impossibly strong>-ium. Their feelings were in the  “I don’t want to see a great show made into an empty modern action-flick that’s all about spectacle and devoid of any merit outside of being made into a ride at Warner Brothers Movie World” sort of area.

They didn’t buy my “It’s not a WB film” protestations. As great big fanboys, I would’ve thought accuracy was something they’d care about. Sheesh.

So, a word of caution amongst my admittedly easy-to-provoke enthusiasm - indications are that diehard fans might have trouble with this new iteration. My friends could very easily be right, if recent cinematic history is anything to go by. It could be, as they justifiably point out, a big pile of soulless nonsense with a cheap Trek paintjob. I kinda hope that, instead, it’s the real and authentic soul of Trek, just given new life in a new body.

Ultimately, perhaps Star Trek was just never meant to rock… but I say bring it on.

So, in an experiment, we recorded with the idea that we would not cut this episode. It actually turned out ok!

In the News: The Dark Knight cracks a billion and gives away the screenplay to celebrate, Where for art thou studio screeners? Uncle Rupert says “Dont fear the tech”, SImon Pegg and Nick Frost are back! ,  Arrested Development Movie hinted at again, Star Trek is played to some lucky people, Monopoly: The Movie, Spielberg and Smith remaking Old Boy, James Cameron said nothing on T4, Batman sues Batman, Australia still sucks, but now Baz has an ‘out‘.

The reviews this week, Max Payne and American Teen

And your homework is The Kid Stays In The Picture…

 

 Live and (Mostly) Uncut [1:05:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ten Things i hate about You, the Series

Cheadle for Iron Man 2

Avatar - Turns out James Cameron is a fucking champ in real life..

Star Trek - Teh Awesomes 

Then its onto reviews with: 

 

 There is Only One Ferris: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Sure, it’s got overacting and bad dialogue and silly costumes and embarrassing alien marriage ceremonies and Wesley Crusher, but at day’s end, I still dig me some Trek. I like the old kitschy one with Shatner’s unique brand of swagger. I like Next Gen with its weighty pretentious pondering and its weighty pretentious captain. I like Deep Space Nine with its overblown prophesying and mawkish romance. Hell, I even like the one with the holographic doctor and that insufferable Neelix guy.

The movies, though, should always have been much better than they were. I mean, I’ll watch them, but more because I really like spaceships and rayguns than the quality of the flicks themselves. Wrath of Kahn is probably the only one that stands up on its own… although I confess to a soft spot for the comedy stylings of the Star Trek Christmas Special. Oh, and that zero-G japery in Undiscovered Country was pretty rockin’.

But really, after the ponderousness of the Motionless Picture led into Ricardo Montalban’s hilariously hammy Kahn, it was all downhill. By the time the Next Gen crew took over, it was all too late – there was just no vigour left in any of it. The final film of the series features a clone of Picard, for Christ’s sake. You don’t need a PhD and a Geiger counter to work out what happened to the whitegoods there.

So, when I hear that JJ Abrams is rebooting the franchise, I say hell yeah! Or, if there are no women present, I might say “Set course for planet awesome: maximum warp!”, or possibly, “Set phasers to fun!”

Everything that’s out about this film so far is sounding pretty good. They’ve got the always solid Karl Urban to be McCoy, which is good. They’ve got that Sylar guy from Heroes to play Spock, which is perfect, because he’s the Spockiest guy you’ve ever seen with the exception of actual Spock. They’ve got some dude called Chris Pine to be Kirk – I dunno what he’s about, but I’m sure he was chosen very carefully.

Most importantly, most awesomely, they’ve got Simon Pegg as space-engineer and miracle-worker nonpareil Montgomery Scott.

St Pegg, Patron Saint of Annoying Your Girlfriend by Quoting the Whole Film, is fuckin’ Scotty. He’s gonna get to say “She cannae take much more of this, cap’n!” And he’s gonna get to beam people places. And it’s gonna take four hours to fix the thingamatron, but for Kirk, he’ll get it done in two! Yay!

I can’t wait a whole year for this!

And, on the early teaser-posters that have come out, he looks awesome and serious and ready to kick arse.

Check him out: