May 9, 2009 | The Star Trek Movie and Logic

Yes, I finally broke down and saw the new Star Trek movie. The movie was, with few exceptions, awesome. The exception I take issue with is the deus ex machina of “time travel,” which bugs me to no end as simply its implementation in the movie is utterly lazy.

For those of us that (maybe sadly) are familiar with Trek in all its various incarnations, time travel is easily one of the most over-used and abused plot devices ever used in the 40+ year history of the franchise. It is easily the second worst plot device in the history of science fiction, if used incorrectly—as is the case, most of the time. I’m not big on time travel itself, unless there are strictures on how it can be used.

For instance, the short-lived series Odyssey 5 (created by Manny Coto) that aired a few years ago employed time travel. However, physical time travel was noted as not being possible, but the transference of memories was possible. As such, the five survivors of the space shuttle Odyssey (who had witnessed the destruction of Earth by an enemy of a technological nature, known only as the “Synthetics”) were sent back in time five years into the past. They only had the memories, which were essentially downloaded into their bodies as they were five years before.

Another notable instance is in the show Quantum Leap, when Sam Beckett jumps randomly throughout time. However, the time travel is related to fixing what once went wrong in people’s lives, and was otherwise uncontrollable. Further, the time jumps only occurred during Beckett’s lifetime, with maybe one notable exception if memory serves (Beckett jumps into his great grandfather, who served in the Civil War).

And to go back to an Irwin Allen production of the 60s, the short-lived series Time Tunnel focused on two people lost in a swirl of “past and future ages,” but their travels were erratic as the U.S. hasn’t a clue on how to return the two travelers to their own time.

What I am getting at is this: when you travel in time and fubar something, you can go back and prevent an event from occurring, assuming the following two conditions.

1. You have the means available at your disposal.
2. There are no rules or strictures to time travel that prohibit it.

Sadly, the universe of Star Trek has already established that both of the above are true: timelines can be restored, whether it is some random quantum anomaly of the week, the Guardian of Forever, or simply doing a “time warp” around the sun. And “Spock Prime” knows how to do two of the three! Why bother to restore Vulcan the hard way when you can restore it with a quick hop and skip into the good ole Guardian? Eh?

If you don’t think about time travel all that much, aren’t much into the Trek canon (either on a limited or expert, die-hard Trekkie basis), and if you don’t think that deeply about the movie long after you’ve seen it, then you’re in for a treat—ignorance is truly bliss. The movie is a good popcorn flick. The movie is well cast, although I will say that Chris Pine reminds me of a younger Ben Browder, and may have watched a lot of Ben Browder’s performance on Farscape in preparation of the movie (so as to differentiate himself from WIlliam Fucking Shatner).

There are a few issues I have with the movie. One is the engineering room, which looks like a contemporary processing plant for biochemicals, nuclear reactors, or something along those lines. This is something you’d expect to see on Battlestar Galactica, not Star Trek—particularly in stark contrast to the Apple-inspired interiors of the bridge and other areas of the good ole Enterprise.

The second is the design of the ship, which doesn’t turn me on at all. There was very little wrong with the Enterprise-A version of the ship that was seen in the movies! That ship was beautiful. You could smooth a few lines out here and there, sure, and add the rotating phaser cannons but… never mind. Not worth going into, since I’m entering the anal Trekkie zone, and that’s not where I want to head. It’s done. Ain’t gonna change a thing.

Despite the above logic problem and the two issues I’ve mentioned with aesthetics, I’m very happy that J.J. Abrams and his cohorts were able to reboot the dying Trek franchise from the pathetic Rick Berman and Brannon Braga years. Overall, the film looks great, is cast very well, had a coherent plot, and it reminds me about the best parts of Star Trek—which have nothing to do with technobabble, talking heads, or political correctness. I do understand why they used the time travel shtick here with old Spock, and that was in an attempt to get most who knew of the old Star Trek shows into the movie theater seats… and that’s fine, I understand that, still I wish they threw in some indication that time travel to fix the timeline was impossible. That was not done here, and would have greatly aided the story from the logic standpoint for those who mulled over the aforementioned shtick.

May 8, 2009 | Something I stumbled across…

In my search for a quote, I found this from Maya Angelou, one of America’s better contemporary poets. Thought I’d share it with ya!

“I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes—it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that’s rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don’t have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.”

And here’s another:

“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things:
a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life. I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

May 5, 2009 | Reading stars is like reading tea leaves… you can do it, but don’t whine if nothing constructive comes from it.

This is my reply to Mojo’s blog post regarding the regrettably, overly deep analysis that some honest, loving fans have done over the run of B-Star Galactica when it comes to star patterns seen fleetingly in the background. If it passes moderation, you’ll see it as a response to his blog… but without some of the corrections I’ve made after the fact in terms of misplaced commas and the like. Enjoy!

Mojo,

I want to take this opportunity to thank you and the amazing CGI/FX team at Battlestar for the wonderfully consistent work on BSG, despite the hectic schedules and the fast turn-around time that you guys need to meet when working on a television budget. (I do have issues with the CGI for “Daybreak,” but I won’t go into that. I understand that the special effects were finished a day before the episode aired, so I understand it.)

While I understand the astronomy or science buffs for being a bit miffed over the so-called “starfield clues,” they need to understand that the sole purpose of a television show is to entertain and, from a financial standpoint, make cubits for the network. (I believe the field you are in is referred to as the “entertainment business,” and as a business there are investments and the expectation is that there is a return on said investments in the form of recouping the initial investment and, ultimately, profit.) If these fans wanted real hard science fiction, then they could go to the library and look into the works of Carl Sagan, Issac Asimov or other golden age SF writers to read. Further, they could simply watch the Discovery, History Channel and other educational shows. The fact that you guys and gals cared enough to be consistent under hectic television schedules and other stresses shows your true dedication and passion for the art of making a television show.

The sad part about these fans (which are less than 0.01% of us, but yet are the most vocal) is that they have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding about what the people in the entertainment trenches of television production go through. I do not for one minute believe that this disrespect is intentional, but rather out of sheer ignorance and, borne from that, misunderstanding. I really wish the fans could go through what I experienced up in Vancouver when prepping for the first BSG auction before the production wrapped after “The Plan” and “Face of the Enemy,” as then they would have had their eyes opened to what actually goes on behind the scenes. Even my personal minimal exposure to this process has nurtured a greater respect for what EVERYONE in the production staff goes through just to make the show happen! Color me “biased,” but at least my opinion is informed.

I’ve always maintained that there are very few fans who (dangerously) read far too much into things in the show, whether it be the way something is said, or into the minute details in the background. And while it’s easy to say that “people will always nitpick at everything and so you must account for that,” it needs to be understood and accepted that you guys cannot account for these things. The conditions that, again, you’ve laid out in your blog post demonstrate that this is impossible. You will never please all the nitpickers, and it isn’t worth your time to do so.

So, yes, the constellations in the Tomb of Athena were a scientific mistake as Grazier admitted and, yes, Gaeta’s comment about them matching in Earth 1′s orbit were also a mistake… however, BSG is an “elseworld” and should be treated as such. After all, the Cylons don’t exist, there’s no William Adama, there’s no “other Earth” and it is all a work of fiction that miraculously lasted longer than its original source material. So what’s to say that the constellations seen in the Tomb of Athena WEREN’T the constellations over the Kobollian Cylons’ homeworld? Hmm…

Regardless, you all have done well for yourselves. Sure there were mistakes, but as BSG is a mirror of the human condition, this is to be expected… and, in a perverse sort of way, cherished and respected.

To those of us who complain and belabor things ad nauseum (and, honestly, to no point)… Be thankful that we received four seasons, two movies, webisodes and a spin-off. It could be worse. You could be watching Galactica 1980 for four seasons, as we could have a spin-off with just the descendants of the “Super Scouts” jumping for joy as they throw seeds into trenches made by lasers as they sing a space scout chantey.

So say we all and thanks for all the fish.

May 5, 2009 | Thanks Mark V.

Former Battlestar writer Mark Verheiden blogged a quick note about the Battlestar Wiki on his blog, which you can read here.

It puts a smile on my face to know that the long work of loving, dedicated fans is noticed by the folks on the higher planes of existence.

May 4, 2009 | To Bed, Then to California…

Yes, this will be my final night before returning to California for one last time. I am headed there to move my stuff out of the apartment, list the stuff that I can’t take with me for sale (and hopefully get a hit on it before next Monday), and close up any loose ends that are out there.

For those of you wondering, I will not be attending the Battlestar Galactica auction in Pasadena, as I have many work and personal items I must deal with… Also, my place is no longer there anyway; the situation has changed and it would be extremely awkward for me being there for reasons that, frankly, are of no concern to anyone.

It was an honor serving with all of you in the trenches and a pleasure meeting everyone who I have encountered during the auction of Battlestar Galactica‘s assets. I bid you all farewell and look forward to crossing paths with a majority of you in the future, for I have met many great people who make this world a better place during these trying times.

So to everyone reading this, good night and good luck. And, as Richard “Apollo/Tom Zarek” Hatch likes to say, “Keep the faith.”

Yours sincerely,

Plain, Simple Joe

May 3, 2009 | Screencaps from “Daybreak”

Just like the fans, EJO takes it up his six in the BSG series finale and Ronald D. Moore opus, "Daybreak."

In the vein of keeping with the daily regiment of “blogging,” here are some sweet high-definition screencaps from “Daybreak,” mainly of The Colony and of the attack. These were posted courtesy of “Antartic Fox” on the Battlestar Forum in this thread.

By the way, not sure if anyone noticed, but during the rappelling scene Lee Adama looses the neoprene piece of his helmet as he exits the airlock. It would have been nice had the fruit turned into a nice blueberry in a flight suit, alas no such luck.

This is just one minor issue of many issues (all of varying degrees) with an otherwise mixed bag that happened to be the epitome of damningly love-it/hate-it finales in the history of science fiction television. I may write more about my views of the new BSG in general later on, since I have severely mixed views on the show in general.

Anyway, more later. Back to construction work before I fly out to California tomorrow. Fun times!