‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’ (1982) and the Kobayashi Maru
Throwback Thursday (Movie review): Montalban’s performance and a thoughtful piece of military strategizing combine to make this an elite “Trek” entry.
10 sequels that are WAY better than the original
Movie commentary: Such films are rare, but we tracked some down. These are the top 10 sequels that are the most better than the original.
‘Star Trek: Discovery’ returns franchise to thoughtful sci-fi roots (TV review)
As a franchise, “Star Trek” has boldly gone many places, and not all of them have been good. While the original series is legendary, and “Next Generation” improves on it, things started to fall apart with “Deep Space Nine,” which cribbed so much from “Babylon 5” that it felt like a cheat calling it “Trek”
‘Star Trek Beyond’ is distractingly loud and stupid (Movie review)
In 2009, J.J. Abrams rebooted the “Star Trek” movie franchise by making a “Star Wars”-style movie with “Star Trek” trappings. The second entry, “Star Trek Into Darkness,” was perhaps closer to “Star Trek,” but it cribbed so liberally from “The Wrath of Khan” that it barely registered as a distinct movie. And now we have “Star
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ boldly goes … where the saga has already gone before (Movie review)
Like director J.J. Abrams’ 2009 “Star Trek” film, “Star Trek Into Darkness” gets all the Trek-isms correct. Everyone is still spot-on as alternate-universe versions of the iconic characters, Scottie and Chekov have thick accents, there are winks about red shirts, Bones says a variation on “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor …” and so forth.
John’s top 10 movies of 2009
I reserve the right to retroactively add “Adam” and “The Invention of Lying” to this list; living in a small town, I have to wait for DVD to see them. So these are my top 10 movies of 2009 as of this moment. I doubt my No. 1 will change, though. A couple days ago, I found out someone
5 random things on my mind (Commentary)
1. In the new “Star Trek” movie, why doesn’t Spock, who has mastered time travel, go back in time to prevent the destruction of his home planet? 2. Here’s a (bizarrely common, considering it has no basis in reality) sign of a lazily written TV show or movie: During the sports sequence, the public address announcer gives
5 random odds and ends (Commentary)
1. In “Return of the Jedi,” when the Ewok (I believe it’s Paploo, but I can’t check it because I don’t have my “Star Wars” library moved into my new place yet) jumps on the speeder bike, he immediately knows how to drive it. Specifically, he immediately knows where to find the override function that
5 random thoughts (Commentary)
Here are five random thoughts. 1. What does pop singer Adele mean when she asks, “Should I give up, or should I just keep chasing pavements?” As I understand it, the British phrase “chasing pavements” means “giving up,” so that would make the lyric redundant, wouldn’t it?
The new ‘Star Trek’ is actually kind of cool (Movie review)
Director J.J. Abrams makes “Star Trek” respectable again with this origin tale that sets up everything we’ve seen in six TV series — I’m including the underappreciated cartoon — and 10 movies. (Well, “Enterprise” takes place before this, but who’s counting?) He also makes “Star Trek” cool for the first time. I smiled a lot during this movie, and