Next Month on Rhode Island Movie Corner

It’s arguably the most iconic media franchise in all of pop culture. What started as just an $11 million sci-fi film from California-born director George Lucas has since resulted in five additional films, numerous TV series and video games, and much, much more. And this December, this highly beloved series will finally return to the big screen under the direction of J.J. Abrams with ‘The Force Awakens’. You know exactly what I’m talking about; it’s ‘Star Wars’. And next month, in honor of May 4^th AKA ‘Star Wars Day’, I’m celebrating this quintessential sci-fi franchise with a whole month of ‘Star Wars’ related content on this blog; it’s ‘Star Wars’ Month here on Rhode Island Movie Corner. All throughout the month of May, every Friday, I’ll be releasing a new blog post focusing on some of the many elements of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise. Of course I’ll be talking about the films, both the original and the prequel trilogies, but I’ll also be giving my own thoughts on the controversial changes made to the original films, will be looking at some of the franchise’s TV series, and will also be listing my Top 10 favorite ‘Star Wars’ video games. For the record, though, the first of these posts will be released next Monday, on ‘Star Wars Day’, instead of this Friday due to scheduling conflicts with a certain superhero film coming out this week. But after that, every subsequent ‘Star Wars’ post will be released on Friday.

MAY 4TH- Original Trilogy (Episodes IV-VI)

MAY 8TH- ‘Special Edition’ Changes

MAY 15TH- Prequel Trilogy (Episodes I-III)

MAY 22TH- TV Series- ‘Clone Wars’ (2003) / ‘The Clone Wars’+ Movie (2008)

MAY 29TH- Top 10 Favorite ‘Star Wars’ video games

Can’t wait to start talking about one of my favorite film franchises of all-time but for now, ‘May the Force be With You!’

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) review

The 2009 ‘Star Trek’ reboot certainly took many people by surprise. J.J. Abrams took a franchise that had been in decline for 7 years and implemented a new sense of energy into it that it had never seen before. The end result was a sleek, exciting, and stylish new take on the Star Trek franchise. Abrams and the writers made the bold move of creating a new alternate universe but in the end, it did work out in the film’s favor. Now, four years after that film, Abrams and the main cast (or shall I say the ‘crew of the Enterprise’) return with ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’. Now that the Enterprise crew has come together, the writers now have more freedom to explore the Star Trek universe further without having to adhere to the series canon. The end result may not be as good as the previous film, but Abrams delivers an exciting new Star Trek film once again, thanks in part to a much stronger main villain.

After an incident on a Class M planet where the USS Enterprise violates the Prime Directive (Starfleet’s most important rule; there shall be no interference with the development of any alien civilization), Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) finds himself demoted for going against Starfleet orders, having done so in order to save his first officer, Spock (Zachary Quinto), from a perilous situation. However, Kirk soon finds himself back in control of the Enterprise when a former Starfleet agent named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) attacks Starfleet directly, fleeing to the Klingon home-world of Kronos. In response, Kirk is ordered to lead the manhunt to capture Harrison but as the Enterprise heads off on its mission, Kirk and his crew soon find themselves in a dangerous situation that only gets worse and worse as they attempt to capture this dangerous fugitive and bring him to justice for his crimes against Starfleet.

If there was any problem with the last Star Trek film, it was that the main villain Nero was rather weak (mainly because of his plan) but because the film was focused on the relationship between Kirk and Spock, it wasn’t that big of a problem. This film, however, belongs to Benedict Cumberbatch, who just does a fantastic job as John Harrison, and he steals the spotlight whenever he’s on screen. Like ‘Iron Man 3’, this is another film that is full of spoilers, one of them being Harrison’s true identity. This is something that may have been spoiled already for some of you (for it was debated about who Cumberbatch was really playing ever since he was cast in the role) but I won’t mention it here along with any other major spoiler. All I can say is that the film itself pays much homage to a classic Star Trek film and it is a pretty unique new take on the ‘story’ of that film, despite the fact that there are certain elements of this new film that are sort of underdeveloped; namely the inclusion of another villain aside from Cumberbatch.

Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto do a fantastic job once again as Kirk and Spock. Like the last film, the relationship between the two is the most important aspect of the film and the two work great together. If it wasn’t, then a key scene near the end of the film wouldn’t have been as tear-jerking as it was. The returning cast is great as well, including Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Karl Urban as Bones, Simon Pegg as Scotty, John Cho as Sulu, and Anton Yelchin as Chekov. It is true that the focus is still on Kirk and Spock, but like with the last film the writers do a good enough job at giving each of them enough to do in the film. As for the new additions to the cast (aside from Cumberbatch), they do fine jobs as well, but some of them don’t really play as big of a part in the film as you may think.

All in all, ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ is a satisfying follow-up to the last film. Having listed this film as my most anticipated film of the year, I’m happy to say that, for the most part, it did not disappoint. For some, this depends on whether or not you’ll like the homages towards an older Star Trek film; most importantly, the identity of the film’s main villain. In fact, you can pretty much call this film a ‘remake’ of that other Trek film. Still, the new take on this story does work pretty well, despite the fact that there are certain elements of the film that were rather underdeveloped. As for the main villain, Benedict Cumberbatch easily steals the show; a definite improvement over the last Star Trek villain. Of course, the acting is still top-notch all-around, the relationship between Kirk and Spock is one of the many highlights of the film, and the film is entertaining from beginning to end. It may not be as good as the last ‘Star Trek’ film, but that is one heck of a film to follow.

Rating: 4.5/5

(Stay Tuned for a Spoiler Discussion Post on the film)

TREK WEEK: Star Trek (2009) review

After the critical and commercial failure of ‘Star Trek: Nemesis’, the Star Trek franchise pretty much went into decline. The latest Trek TV series at the time, ‘Enterprise’, was canceled in 2005 due to low ratings. Just like around the time before the first Trek film came out, ‘Star Trek’ just faded into the background for most of the first decade of the 21^st century. But then, in 2009, director J.J. Abrams (in only his second directorial effort, having been mainly known for his work on television at that point) brought the series back to relevance with his reboot/pseudo-prequel. It’s a pseudo-prequel in the sense that while it is the story of how the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise came together, this new Star Trek takes the bold new route of creating an alternate universe while still establishing that the original Trek universe still exists. The end result is not only one of the most exciting sci-fi films in recent years, but a film that also does a fantastic job at reimagining the Star Trek franchise.

In this new Star Trek universe, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) starts out as a reckless and brash rebel who never knew his father George (Chris Hemsworth, pre-Thor), who sacrificed his life to save hundreds of lives, including James and his mother; James being born just before his father’s death. When he is approached by Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) to enlist in Starfleet, the same organization Kirk’s father was a member of, Kirk does end up joining but three years later, he comes into conflict with Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto), a Vulcan who struggles to deal with his half-human/half-Vulcan heritage. As Kirk and Spock try to work together as they become crew-members on the U.S.S. Enterprise, the new Enterprise crew must deal with a dangerous villain; an angry Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) from the future (whose actions created the new alternate timeline) who vows revenge on Starfleet for the future destruction of his home-world of Romulus and more importantly, Spock. For it was Spock who, in the future, promised the Romulans he would protect their home world from destruction. But, as it has turned out, he did not succeed.

This new Star Trek is one of those rare films where it not only appeals to fans of the series, but it also works for those who aren’t Star Trek fans (I can certainly account for this, being in the latter group when I first saw the film). In fact, the film actually feels like it’s more suited to non-Trek fans. According to writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, they wanted to inject some of Star Wars’ ‘rock-and-roll’ style into Trek, which to them felt more like ‘Classical Music’. When watching this film, it’s clear they did what they wanted to do. In fact, a lot of shots and ideas in this film do feel like they have been lifted from Star Wars; and all of this before Abrams was even hired to direct ‘Episode VII’. This is certainly much different from what longtime Trek fans were used to, but the film is exciting, sleek, and bold. The whole idea of the filmmakers creating a whole new alternate universe is risky, but it does work in the sense that it allows them to explore new stories without having to stay confined to the original series’ canon.

Casting is pretty much perfect, with each member of the cast stepping into their shoes of their predecessors quite well. Both Pine and Quinto are excellent as the new Kirk and Spock, respectively. Pine’s version of Kirk is very much reminiscent of Han Solo, as he’s the brash rebel who soon matures into the Captain of the Enterprise. As for Quinto as Spock, the writers do a great job at focusing on this Spock’s conflict of being half-human and half-Vulcan. There’s also a nice nod to the original series with the addition of Leonard Nimoy as an older version of Spock. It works because it’s not distracting and the inclusion of Nimoy also helps in strengthening the relationship between Kirk and Spock, which is the major focus of the movie. The two start out not liking each other, but as they mature they soon become the friends that we know them to be in the future.

Aside from Pine and Quinto, the rest of the cast is also great as well, and the writers did a good job at giving each key crew-member of the Enterprise a good amount of screen-time and more importantly show why they belong on the Enterprise. Uhura (Zoe Saldana), who actually wasn’t given much to do in the original series, is now the third most important character in the film, which is partially emphasized through her relationships with both Kirk and Spock, acting rather coldly to the former at first and actually being in a relationship with the latter. Uhura’s more substantial role in the film means that McCoy (Karl Urban) doesn’t play as big of a part as ‘Bones’ has had in previous Trek films, but Urban is actually probably the closest to his predecessor, DeForest Kelley. He just nails every detail about the character perfectly, from the attitude to, of course, how Bones and Spock don’t always get along. The way the writers implement Scotty (Simon Pegg) into the crew is well-done, and Pegg does a great job in the role, which pretty much has him be the comic relief. Finally, when regarding Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Sulu (John Cho), they’re actually probably the least important of the main Enterprise crew, but the writers still give them enough to do in the film. Sulu in particular has an awesome action scene where he gets to show off his fencing talents.

If I did have one complaint about the film, it is that the main villain Nero is admittedly a rather weak Star Trek villain. This is mainly due to how his plan plays out in the film. So, in the future where he came from, the planet of Romulus was destroyed by a star that went supernova. Nero and the future Spock get caught up in a wormhole which sends them back in time; in Nero’s case, his appearance is responsible for creating the new alternate universe. Rather than warning Romulus about the planet’s impending doom, he just waits for at least two decades for the future Spock to arrive so that he can have him suffer the same way he did (Spoilers: in this new universe, the planet of Vulcan is destroyed). Eric Bana is fine as Nero, but the character needed a stronger plan. But, this film is mainly focused on the relationship between Kirk and Spock, so while the main villain is a weak one, it’s understandable as to why it is how it is and it doesn’t really affect the movie that much.

While great reboots are sometimes hard to come by, this new Star Trek greatly exceeds expectations and stands toe to toe with some of the best Star Trek films ever. Even with the risky move of creating an alternate timeline, the writing is superb, the cast is excellent, and the movie is a bold, sleek, and stylish new take on Star Trek. Kudos to Abrams for bringing the Star Trek franchise back to prominence after it sort of faded out following ‘Star Trek Nemesis’. This is how the Star Wars prequels should have turned out. After all, this does actually kind of feel like ‘Star Wars’ in certain areas. But as the next evolution of Star Trek, it does its job of not just appealing to Trek’s longtime fans, but it’s also a great introduction for someone like me who went in not knowing a damn thing about Star Trek. Not only is it one of the best Star Trek films ever, but it has quickly become one of my favorite films of all time.

Rating: 5/5!

Thoughts on J.J. Abrams as director of Star Wars Episode 7

Ever since Disney purchased Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars back in October 2012, and then announced that a new trilogy of films were coming out, everyone was anxious to see who Disney would hire to helm the first film, Episode VII, which is set to come out in 2015. Well, Disney has found their guy as it has just been announced that director J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Super 8) will be directing the film. This is quite the news considering how much Abrams has been involved with the other major space-based film franchise out there in Star Trek. Of course, some are not too happy about that because Abrams has been involved with Trek, but as someone who is a huge fan of Abrams' work, I couldn't be any more excited about this news and what it means for the Star Wars franchise.



First off, let me start by saying that I didn't really grow up with Star Wars. Sure, I saw all of the movies when I was a kid, but it wasn't actually until last year's re-release of 'The Phantom Menace' when I actually saw one of these films in the theater. As for my thoughts on the films, I am one of those who is a big fan of the original films. Of course by original, I mean the first trilogy of films that came out from 1977 to 1983 and were not altered in anyway (seriously Lucas, put 'those' films on Blu-Ray, damn it!). It's one of those rare trilogies where each of the films are superb in their own way. Its biggest strength is in its writing, especially when it comes to character development as each of the main characters has a story arc which follows them through all of the movies. 'A New Hope' was the one that started it all, of course, 'The Empire Strikes Back' was one of the greatest sequels of all time with one of the best twists in film history, and I feel that 'Return of the Jedi' is actually kind of underrated mainly due to the final fight between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader that has so much at stake.



As for those prequels that everyone loves to hate, I don't think that they are bad films but compared to the original trilogy, they obviously don't stand a chance. 'The Phantom Menace' suffered from a weak script and had so many characters in it that there was no clear main character. That problem was fixed with 'Attack of the Clones', but we still had to suffer through some bad writing and a really, really bland romance. 'Revenge of the Sith' was a huge improvement over the last two films except for, once again, weak writing and dialogue. When you look at it, it was the writing that killed these prequels. The characters were rather bland, the dialogue was too cheesy, and these films were clearly more focused on the visuals than actually telling a story.



But back to Abrams and Episode VII. When the news first broke out that this film was happening, I was waiting to see who would be directing the film. After all, with a project as big as this, sometimes it all depends on who is the director. I mean, imagine if someone like Paul W.S. Anderson or Brett Ratner was directing this film. I would be very worried because they're not good directors. J.J. Abrams, on the other hand, is one of the best directors working today. Even though his directorial career up to this point has only consisted of four films (one of which being the upcoming 'Star Trek: Into Darkness'), he has yet to make a bad film. Mission Impossible III was the first in the series to actually focus more on the team than lead Tom Cruise, his Star Trek reboot appealed to both fans and non-fans of the series, and Super 8 was one of the best original films of the last decade.



The fact that he did direct a Star Trek film and is now directing a Star Wars film is just mind-blowing to me. In all my years, I believed that we would never see something like this happening but this is real and it's going to happen. Of course, some people aren't too happy because of Abrams' involvement with Star Trek, but this is a really good thing when you think about it because of his work on Star Trek. He took a franchise that was, in a way, on life support and resurrected it and you know what, Star Wars is kind of on that level after the whole controversy of the Special Editions and the much-maligned prequels. With Abrams on board, I believe that he can resurrect Star Wars to what it was back in the late 70's and early 80's.



But now of course, the big question remains, what is this new trilogy of films actually going to be about? I for one don't want to see another trilogy revolving solely around the Skywalker family. Sure, if you have to include them, feel free to do so but I want to see the filmmakers explore more into this universe and to not just copy what was done before; Perhaps they could do a film based around the bounty hunters of this galaxy far, far away, or maybe even one from the view of the Empire. But most importantly, Abrams, don't let Lucas change a damn thing about your film like he did his own films. Make sure that when we watch it, we are watching your own vision of Star Wars the way you intend it to be. I eagerly await this new Star Wars movie, especially now that Abrams is directing it. Mr. Abrams, May the Force be With You, and Live Long and Prosper!

 

(That's right, I went there!)