barely fatal

I’m having my holidays! Yes, right now! The first and only this year … And you thought I’d be playing games all day? No way, the first few days I could spend far away from any computers … and here I am, blogging. Yes, I do have issues, I guess.

On Monday I left town to visit my sister in Bavaria. Usually I’d booked a seat on a train, but since my sister insisted and tried to convince me it was „the cheapest and easiest way to get somewhere“ I agreed that she found me a car trip on a website on which users can offer lifts. So I packed my things, a really heavy and bulky travel bag (with all the christmas presents), sleeping bag and the like and carried it to the tram which brought me to the other end of the city where I was to meet my driver. I was supposed to look for a „Green Fiat Uno, female driver, one other passenger, at the taxi strip in front of the train station“. I positioned myself strategically and waited. Of course I was a little early (better be early than be left behind).

Ten minutes before the scheduled departure my sister called. My driver was waiting for me. I looked left and right. Oh well, I thought. I had the driver’s mobile number so I called her. Five meters to my left a young woman reached for her mobile phone … So, I found out that the green Fiat was actually a red Opel Astra. And the single other passenger turned out to be actually three people, all with big, bulky and heavy bags. The car already looked a little stuffed and I started to wonder …

A lot of pushing and squeezing later we were all in, somehow, and our bags were, too. It was tight. For the first time of my life I was thankful to have short legs. The driver smoked while driving. It was too cold to open the windows. We needed to stop to pump up the tires – the car’s frame was almost touching the wheels – we were absolutely overloaded. Of course there was snow on the Autobahn, and of course the car didn’t have winter-ready tires.

I’m still alive and we made it through without trouble (three hour ride). Ok, going up the slightest hill brought the car to an almost-stop on full throttle, but … well lets just say we made it. And it wasn’t all bad. My co-passengers all were very nice and we had a good time chatting. It certainly didn’t hurt to sit next (partly under) a nice talkative female music student … rather than the quiet overweight guy in the front row. And we got a discount.

So it was cheap, and partly even fun. Compared to a train ride it lacked some … comfort that I got used to. Today we’re going on another trip … my sister says it’s gonna be smooth, luxurious and on time. Fingers crossed.

Slightly oversized Gorilla with gentle hands, black fur, good theeth, looking for small white woman to protect and play with. Only serious replies please!

On the premiere weekend Peter Jackson’s new movie King Kong didn’t meet the expectations at the box office. I asked myself why, and quickly found out that noone I know seems to be interested in the whole ‘Giant ape’ topic. I had seen the HD trailer and been impressed by the CGI shots. Being the special effects whore that I am I decided to give it a try.

Spoiler Warning! Kong has a lot of ingredients that make a great pop-corn movie. Great cinematography, lighting, sound, visual effects, screenplay, action, fun, love … it’s all there. I mean, I can hardly understand how anyone could not enjoy seeing a 8m-tall Gorilla wreck New York City while holding a screaming woman in his right hand. Looking at it from greater distance though it’s hard to miss the weak spots the movie has.

The movie starts in a New York of the 20ies, a very authentic New York I must add. Not only the sets and costumes really embrace the atmosphere but also the city-wide CGI shots fully pay up for what you would expect from a Jackson movie nowadays. I won’t say much about the story here, it has been explained over and over in the media. So just a very short summary here: A film crew headed by a director who would sell his parents for his movie charters a rusty old freighter and set sail for Skull Island to finish a movie. Little do they know about the dangers that await them – naturally. They meet Kong, Kong meets white woman, Kong is beaten and transported to New York, Kong wrecks the City, Kong is killed. Movie over.

The best actor: Kong. Not only has the CGI team done an incredibly good job with rendering and animations. Without any dialogue (well none that doesn’t involve ‘Ugh’ or really, really loud growls) one would assume, if there was something like a giant ape, it would be exactly like Kong.. The silver medal goes to ‘white woman’ Naomi Watts. Jack Black did a decent job as well. Then what else do we have? A captain who strangely reminded me of the ‘KaLeu’ from Wolfgang Peterson’s ‘Das Boot‘ (might have been poor german dubbing though). A crewman with obvious similarities to Popeye (meant to be funny I guess). A few more cliche crewman on the ship, cliche camera man, the film crew’s male actor… in the end they have one thing in common: they stand by to be killed in the right moment.

The first half of the movie is without a doubt the weaker part. The story holes and logic problems are obvious. The wild, animal-like natives of Skull Island that kidnap Ann and want to sacrifice her to Kong somehow didn’t ‘feel quite right’ to me. They are merely ultra-violent, scary badguys that were simply needed at that point of the film. The second part of the movie had more action and less dialogue – that’s where the fun starts. The awesome CGI shots of dinosaurs (watch the trailer!) are really the best of what I’ve seen so far. There are still some scenes where the rescue-in-the-last-second appeared to be quite artificially constructed, but heck, it’s an action movie after all. Maybe it only had been the jungle/ruins setting, but at more than one point I’d been reminded of the Indiana Jones trilogy … not the worst thing, I think.

Kong – his passion for the small white woman, his tragic death, that’s great Hollywood. One could argue that the movie could have done with two hours (it runs 187 minutes), and that would probably be right. However it never becomes boring. It’s 3 hours popcorn entertainment, with a giant ape going havoc in New York. It’s neither Fellowship nor King, but it’s fun. If you are a visual dude or into special effects, go watch it. If not: well it’s exactly what the story promises, nothing more, nothing less. Not a B(ad) movie.

I had a lot of time lately to surf the web and read stuff. I decided to visit SaveEnterprise.com to see if the campaign to bring back Star Trek Enterprise was still going. Just so you know: it isn’t. It was a pointless effort to start with anyway, but nobody could know that one year ago. There are some people who continue fighting, but there’s so much to say to that, I’ll leave that for another day.

Today, it’s all about fan fiction, or the dark fanatic side of it. On the above-mentioned website I got side-tracked by a link and ended up on Michael Wong’s StarDestroyer.net. Although Star Wars related by theme, Wong actually uses the site to fight a war on a topic that is ever so popular among Sci-Fi fans: What-if scenarios, especially “What if the (Star Wars) Empire met the (Star Trek) Federation in combat?”
Well, Wong makes it pretty clear who would win, in 0.25 seconds to be precise: The mighty Empire of course. To prove his point, he uses tons of ‘scientific’ evidence to show how Star Wars technology is a million times more powerful that Star Trek’s. That’s what caught my eye.

Wong states he was an engineer or at least someone who could tell a lightyear from a parsec. He digs up formulas to calculate turbolaser blasts, shield strengths, power outputs, you name it. He (and his small forum army) use the films, radio dramas and manuals as material to work with. They measure laser beam lengths, make assumption and, more often, determinations. They know. To sum it up, the core predication as seen by Wong:

In a straight-up fight, the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug.

How could any righteous Star Trek fan swallow this? Here’s where website no. 2 comes into play: G2K’s ST-v-SW.Net. He fights for the Federation, and as an honourable Starfleet Officer he uses less drastic figures than Wong does. On his page, the Empire loses … but the Federation doesn’t win either. Now that gets a big plus from me. Using the same disarming methods as Wong he shows how wrong his oppenents are and how ridiculous Stormtroopers must feel in their shiny white plastic armor.

The most important question that is always brought up is what is supposed to be ‘canon’ and what not. Canon when it comes to Sci-Fi means everything that is officially considered to be ‘real’ in the respective universe. For Star Trek that would be the movies and the shows by definition of late Gene Roddenberry himself, not the books or novels. For Star Wars it’s a little more complicated. The movies were altered, there’s a much larger so-called expanded universe described in books, novels, comics and animated series. Wong likes to interpret the canon however he needs it. As one can see, there’s much to argue about.

Why do I bother? Are these two examples of pure fanatic fanboys, fighting pointless debates over issues nobody who can think straight would ever imagine to become interesting enough for discussions? Of course. For me, the whole affair is unbelievably entertaining to watch unfold. They have been going on for years. In fact, the whole issue goes as far back as the early 80ies (the VS. thing, not the Wong/G2K battle). G2K says

Granted, this is not the most important topic on the planet … or in this country … or even in this room. But, that which is false must be challenged. Oh, I could engage in some other debate, but this one is kinda fun, and makes good practice for the others.

Well said, Mr. Anderson. And I still wonder how the Empire and the Federation could ever meet a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away and in the immediate future right here on our planet – I probably just don’t have that kind of powerful imagination.

The internet really is a dangerous place.

Do you remember Ensign Wesley Crusher? The green but uber guy who was the first infant ever allowed by Captain Picard to sit on his bridge? The savior of Enterprise-D (on more than one occasion)? The oh-so-cute son of Doctor Beverly Crusher? The one cast member virtually every single Star Trek fan hated the most? Yeah, so do I.

Wil Wheaton, that’s the name of the actor who played (in)famous Wesley. He writes a quite popular blog. Or, if you go with what most people say, a formerly popular blog. He used to write about his career, the ups and downs that came with it, even published 2 books on the topic. It’s not all about Star Trek but also about what it is like being a child actor and what it feels like when a whole generation hates you (when all you wanted as a teen was to be popular).

Why am I writing about Wil, well in the last weeks I keep stumbling over his name. May it be in some TV show’s credits, another blog, another website: I always dig up his name. The straw that broke the camel’s back though was the GTA: San Andreas manual. He’s listed to be one of the radio show moderators. Of course I didn’t recognize him when I played the game, I only know the german dub of Star Trek: TNG. Yet, it strikes me odd how often I hear about him. Maybe there’s not only a life after (or besides?) Star Trek but also popularity through the internet?

Who knows, maybe we’ll see Wil again in Star Trek XI … it’s rumored to feature all three Enterprise captains (argh!), I certainly wouldn’t mind. Wil, we hated you as Wesley alright, but it’s the loving kinda hate, y’know?