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Boy, where do I start? The eternal frustration of limited Internet access: I can't hop on to LJ whenever I want, so I have to store up things to post about and then I forget half of them, lose my enthusiasm for half the remaining, and post things that aren't necessarily entirely relevant. Or possibly relevent. Some words trip me up and that is one of them.
I guess I'll go chronologically, which takes me back to Sunday night, shortly ofter my truncated post in the mall, and leads me to Borders, where I must explain a few things.
See, in 1997, my favourite Star Trek novel author (not a WORD), Peter David, published the first four books - actually a mini-series - that became the beginning of a book series Star Trek: New Frontier. It was unique because, rather than being about one of the ST series, it was its own series. It took a few bit characters and made up a bunch of characters and put them all together into the crew of the Excalibur. PAD (as his fans call him) gave them backstories and developed intriguing character dynamics and came up with bizarre stories that worked. He gave us Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, an example of that rare creature: The Mary Sue (in this case, male) who is likeable and not irritating.
And PAD was prompt; two new NF books every November for years . . . until, suddenly, it didn't happen. Last year, I was bewildered, searching high and low for my yearly hit. PAD was still clearly in the business, as proven by his (painful and abominable) Spider-Man novelization. At a loss, I could only conclude that there simply weren't enough fans of the series, and it had been cancelled. Which seemed weird, since two years before it had apparently been deemed worthy of a hardcover release, but . . . there you are.
I still kept looking for new books out of habit, which is what drew me to the scifi section in Borders on Sunday. And . . . and . . . there it was. The latest New Frontier!! And there's another book! Two NF books, right on schedule save a FREAKING YEAR. Having given up on the continued existence of this series that I've followed patiently from the beginning, trhough even its most boring stretches (PAD is hit-or-miss; when he's on, he's great, when he's off, the result is chapters and chapters of tedium), I was overjoyed to see that it wasn't dead, just late. (Bwaha.)
Later on that evening, Matrix: Revolutions, and, uh, yes. Rikki and I heckled the crap out of it, and it deserved such. Personally, I had more fun than I did with Reloaded, but then I watched that one alone with no one to share my moments of "WTF?" To be honest, I'm not really a Matrix fan, but judging from the reactions I've seen, that merely means that I've been been spared a lot of pain. Okay, now a couple of comments to justify the spoiler cut tags:
* The battle at Zion reminded me, ironically enough, of Speed 2, a bad sequel which Keanu Reeves was clever enough to turn down. Both were absolutely stuffed full of all kinds of cool, shiny, neat-looking events, and both, in spite of all of this, were terminally boring. I'll admit to my bias against battle sequences - they've always bored me. The only battle/fight sequence that has succeeded in holding my attention through the entire thing was TTT's battle at Helm's Deep. But, I suspect that they both share a reason for the boredom: No characters we care about. In Speed 2, the characters frankly all suck, and in the battle at Zion, the only principal character we see is Morpheus, and he's involved peripherally at best. If Neo or Trinity had been there, even I could have mustered up some interest.
* As demonstrated by the fact that I could have watched the final fight between Neo and Smith all day. It was the coolest. Hugo Weaving overacted and Keanu underacted and it was just so much fun. Why couldn't that scene have lasted for half an hour?
* Oh, and as for the ending? Yeah, Neo's ass is grass. After so elaborately setting up Smith as not only a majorly powerful villain, but the yin to Neo's yang (or possibly the other way around, I can't remember which is which) the only way his defeat makes any sense is if Neo had to sacrifice himself to do it. As for the rest of it, just don't get me started. So dumb. So trite. So nonsensical. I'm pretending that I fell asleep and missed the scene that made it all make sense.
Dammit, I'm running short on time. I wanted to wax enthusiastic about Willard, but that looks like it's going to have to wait. Man, the one time I have lots to say and it's also the one time I'm actually held to the hour limit.
So. Next time. Willard. If nothing else, this gives you a day to rent it and watch it (dooooooooo it) before I can get started tainting your first viewing with my opinions. ;)
I guess I'll go chronologically, which takes me back to Sunday night, shortly ofter my truncated post in the mall, and leads me to Borders, where I must explain a few things.
See, in 1997, my favourite Star Trek novel author (not a WORD), Peter David, published the first four books - actually a mini-series - that became the beginning of a book series Star Trek: New Frontier. It was unique because, rather than being about one of the ST series, it was its own series. It took a few bit characters and made up a bunch of characters and put them all together into the crew of the Excalibur. PAD (as his fans call him) gave them backstories and developed intriguing character dynamics and came up with bizarre stories that worked. He gave us Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, an example of that rare creature: The Mary Sue (in this case, male) who is likeable and not irritating.
And PAD was prompt; two new NF books every November for years . . . until, suddenly, it didn't happen. Last year, I was bewildered, searching high and low for my yearly hit. PAD was still clearly in the business, as proven by his (painful and abominable) Spider-Man novelization. At a loss, I could only conclude that there simply weren't enough fans of the series, and it had been cancelled. Which seemed weird, since two years before it had apparently been deemed worthy of a hardcover release, but . . . there you are.
I still kept looking for new books out of habit, which is what drew me to the scifi section in Borders on Sunday. And . . . and . . . there it was. The latest New Frontier!! And there's another book! Two NF books, right on schedule save a FREAKING YEAR. Having given up on the continued existence of this series that I've followed patiently from the beginning, trhough even its most boring stretches (PAD is hit-or-miss; when he's on, he's great, when he's off, the result is chapters and chapters of tedium), I was overjoyed to see that it wasn't dead, just late. (Bwaha.)
Later on that evening, Matrix: Revolutions, and, uh, yes. Rikki and I heckled the crap out of it, and it deserved such. Personally, I had more fun than I did with Reloaded, but then I watched that one alone with no one to share my moments of "WTF?" To be honest, I'm not really a Matrix fan, but judging from the reactions I've seen, that merely means that I've been been spared a lot of pain. Okay, now a couple of comments to justify the spoiler cut tags:
* The battle at Zion reminded me, ironically enough, of Speed 2, a bad sequel which Keanu Reeves was clever enough to turn down. Both were absolutely stuffed full of all kinds of cool, shiny, neat-looking events, and both, in spite of all of this, were terminally boring. I'll admit to my bias against battle sequences - they've always bored me. The only battle/fight sequence that has succeeded in holding my attention through the entire thing was TTT's battle at Helm's Deep. But, I suspect that they both share a reason for the boredom: No characters we care about. In Speed 2, the characters frankly all suck, and in the battle at Zion, the only principal character we see is Morpheus, and he's involved peripherally at best. If Neo or Trinity had been there, even I could have mustered up some interest.
* As demonstrated by the fact that I could have watched the final fight between Neo and Smith all day. It was the coolest. Hugo Weaving overacted and Keanu underacted and it was just so much fun. Why couldn't that scene have lasted for half an hour?
* Oh, and as for the ending? Yeah, Neo's ass is grass. After so elaborately setting up Smith as not only a majorly powerful villain, but the yin to Neo's yang (or possibly the other way around, I can't remember which is which) the only way his defeat makes any sense is if Neo had to sacrifice himself to do it. As for the rest of it, just don't get me started. So dumb. So trite. So nonsensical. I'm pretending that I fell asleep and missed the scene that made it all make sense.
Dammit, I'm running short on time. I wanted to wax enthusiastic about Willard, but that looks like it's going to have to wait. Man, the one time I have lots to say and it's also the one time I'm actually held to the hour limit.
So. Next time. Willard. If nothing else, this gives you a day to rent it and watch it (dooooooooo it) before I can get started tainting your first viewing with my opinions. ;)
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