Read This If You Want To Live

Read This If You Want To Live

Terminator: Salvation

Directed by McG

Reviewed by Ernest M. Whiteman III

I used to love The Terminator when I was a child. Yep, I was able to see R Rated films in my hometown. As long as you had an adult with you, you could see most anything. I always thought that is what made Riverton cool. They knew it was up to the parents to decide, not committee. They also knew a kid knows the difference between a violent sci-fi actioner and real life. I mean, how many robots from the future do you run into in real life. Me? Maybe two. So far.

I played Terminator as a boy, making up sequels with my little sister so she could play too. It was fun. But before you rag on me about dragging nostalgia into a movie review, thus rendering me a hypocrite, believe me when I tell you that I, unlike many others, know the difference between the nostalgia of watching a sci-fi actioner and real life.

You see? I have grown the fuck up. People do. People should.

Terminator Salvation is the fourth of the Terminator series, the second to go without creator James Cameron and the first to go without Arnold Schwarzenegger as the lead. Directed by McG, the story picks up in the year 2018. John Connor, the supposed savior of humanity is not yet the leader we need him to be. Which is what many had a problem with. It was a good story for the Connor character to rise through the ranks to become the man who shows humanity how to smash those metal motherfuckers to bits.

But since it didn’t have purple lasers, and shiny space tanks rolling over mountains of human skulls, JUST LIKE TERMINATOR 2 DID (!!!), than it, all together now: “raped” childhoods everywhere. For some reason, what becomes popular seems to appeal to our wanting-to-stay-young mentality. The popularity of “Twilight”, “Tweeting”, even “Transformers 2” and now “G.I. Joe”, movies based on childhood toys are making it big. Shit, there was a time when grown men, GROWN men, where chewing on pacifiers, if I remember that dreaded trend correctly.

Attaching nostalgia to something as ridiculous as a movie prevents us from living in the now. Now, some may say, an exciting popcorn flick is needed to distract us from the rigors of our current reality even for a little while. I say, fucking boo-hoo, man up and face reality like the grown ups we are. Geez.

Now, what I disliked about the movie was the weakness of the forced storyline of Marcus Wright. But the theme of a machine learning to appreciate human life is a theme that the beloved T2 espoused. Also, Kyle Reese’s machinations were a little too Rube Goldbergian for me. He must have waited months, after he and that other little kid moved around ten-ton equipment and to get them set just right, all just for a single terminator robot to come traipsing by, so they could spring their trap. Six months of staring at that street FINALLY pay off.

Overall, it was an okay movie, heck, a good movie. Still, I am so tired of the twist ending, like it was all a plot by some unforeseen adversary all along.

Recommend only if you like sci-fi action-ers.

But not if your childhood is based on faint memories that grow dimmer with each passing decade, which only convinces you, more and more, that your childhood memory was so fucking fantastic that if this one movie causes you to remember it wrong, that that childhood movie will be erased forever, from existence.

© 2009 Ernest M. Whiteman III

Boldly Going There Again

Boldly Going There, Again
A Review of "Star Trek"
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Reviewed by Ernest M. Whiteman III

RED ALERT! RED ALERT! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Sci Fi Geeks have the toughest time facing reality.

They cannot accept that the world continues to move on without ever acknowledging that they are the Chosen Ones or the Pinnacle of Human Society or the Keepers of Useless Nostalgia. So, when something a silly as a movie remake or reboot of a beloved TV series or movie occurs, they freak the fuck out because if Twikkie isn’t in it or it does not have some has-been from the TV series in the movie in some sort of useless way, than the movie will have raped their childhoods. God, GROW UP!

Star Trek opens with a bang. With the USS Kelvin coming under attack from a mysterious ship that blows it out of space. Here we have James Tiberius Kirk’s birth being remolded as that of Conan the Barbarian; born on the battlefield as Kirk is literally pulled from his mother as the battle rages.

From there we have a look at a young Spock dealing with bullies as he is half human and how the ENTIRE Vulcan race sees that as a disability. Star Trek then goes on to show how people of different backgrounds come together to form the nucleus of our favorite, low-budget TV series of the 60's. It continues the canon universe while at the same time starting its own. The movie suddenly felt like Star Trek to me when they began talking of alternate time lines.

But here, Kirk and Spock must overcome their animosity towards each other to stop a Romulan called Nero from destroying the planets of the Federation. Nero comes from the future a bit beyond Jean-Luc Picard and after seeing the destruction of his home world Romulus, he holds Spock responsible, but a time rift accidently pulls them into the past and thus sets Nero on his dastardly plan of revenge altering time as he goes.

The Romulans got a lot of flak for being boring villains but Nero, as played by Eric Bana, does something NO OTHER Trek villain has done, at least in my memory; he destroys a planet! He destroys a MAJOR, STAR TREK Universe planet! Give the guy his props, the dude destroyed Vulcan! No other villain has ever done that in Star Trek lore.

Aside Alert: Cuba and I were talking about this. Even the Beloved Borg, never destroyed a planet. In fact, they assimilated whole races. They practically gave you shelter, sustenance, and a purpose. Shit, I know tons of guys that would only benefit from Borg assimilation. It’s rather cushy beyond the whole losing control of self and of personality. But really, who needs those? It's only ego and pride to see these things as worth saving, right? Hell, even our beloved Death Star only destroyed one planet! Nero is tied with the Death Star, so cut him some slack. Just because he did not wear a wig and chest pad and quoted Melville.

When Kirk is marooned for mutiny on an ice planet he conveniently happens upon the time displace Spock of the future (Nimoy), who steers him to one Montgomery Scott, future chief engineer of the Enterprise and they puzzle out how to get back aboard the ship. From there they race to prevent Nero from destroying Earth.

I was one of the doubters of Chris Pine as Kirk. But a tiny single moment in one of the international trailers changed my mind. When Uhura tells him "I hope you know what you’re doing." and Kirk replied, "Yeah, me too." To me, for the first time since I heard of this movie, he sounded like Kirk, from the movies and series. No, he did not sound like Shatner. But Kirk. (Check the line here at the 1:27 mark.) That one line changed my view of the movie and made me see the choices that Pine made for the role. (See? Nostalgia can play a part.) It was smart for Pine NOT to ape Shatner. It imbued Kirk with a sense of swagger and a sense of needing Starfleet.

Zachary Quinto was good as the young Spack. But what bugs me was not his channeling Nimoy, which I did not mind, he made Spock his own. I loved that everyone BUT Spock saw his mother’s lineage as a disability. His rejecting the Vulcan Science Council is one of the best scenes in the movie, possibly in all Trek movies. It has heart and soul, something unexpected coming from a Vulcan. I loved his relationship with Uhura. Now what bugged me was the fake bowl cut. Should have left him with his natural hair. If anyone seen The Cage, the first pilot for the old seires, realize that Quinto is playing this Spock. But sans the famous bowl cut. Yeah, I’m getting geeky and nit-picky, like I just denounced.

Because, what interested me most is how many "die-hard" fans disliked this reboot crying around about how it erases all those year of Star Trek. Geez, get over it folks. Here yet another case of way too many people attaching nostalgia to a brand new movie. Why can’t people just let it go. Enjoy the movie or not. Don’t make it a matter of memory. Nothing will ever live up to how you will remember a thing. I liked it very much. I enjoyed the action, the effects, the acting. I am very familiar with the mythology of Star Trek, I love, love LOVE they added Captain Christopher Pike. And that he lives!

I really loved how it rewrote the rules of Trek while at the same time paying homage to Star Trek history and safekeeping the original series. Karl Urban, of Lord of the Rings fame, is the highlight of the film, actually pulling a performance of Doctor "Bones" McCoy and, for me, he showed the younger actors a thing or two about channeling the character while still making it his own.

Still, as good as this movie is and perceived, it still does not explain how Kirk and McCoy exchanged eye color! (For the die-hard Trekkies!)

High recommendation.


WOS Reviews © 2009 Ernest M. Whiteman III