Showbits

For the third time this year, I bring you news of several talented artists who have passed on.

Composer and Emmy winner Alexander Courage passed away last month at age 88. His works include the theme to the original Star Trek television series. Yet he received little of his dues from that famous piece. To cut costs, Gene Roddenberry wrote lyrics to accompany Mr. Courage's music. Despite no intention of using the (awful) lyrics, Mr. Roddenberry was then able to claim half the royalties that would've otherwise gone to the song's rightful creator. Whether or not any reparations were ever made between the two, I am unsure. Snopes states that "After scoring a couple of first-season episodes, Courage declined to perform any further musical work for the series." But his influence on what eventually became the Star Trek franchise is noted in his filmography, which gives him attribution on practically every Star Trek movie, show, and game of the last half-century.

Shortly thereafter, the musical world also suffered the loss of Earle Hagen, also aged 88. Mr. Hagen was responsible for such memorable theme songs as those of The Dick Van Dyke Show and Andy Griffith. These are the shows I grew up on, and though these comedies played out in a different situation every week, we were always introduced to them with the familiar opening sequences and tunes. Thank you, Mr. Hagen, for leaving that mark.

I'd intended for these two passings to be the extent of this post, but I unfortunately recently learned of two others. Unlike the musicians above, Robert Justman's talent was in directing and producing for both TOS and TNG. Though he worked on only one season of TNG, his decision to cast Patrick Stewart over Gene Roddenberry's objections was a decision with an indelible mark on Trek lore. Mr. Justman died last month at age 82.

Also a directorial veteran of TOS was Joseph Pevney, who gave us such episodes as The City on the Edge of Forever and The Trouble with Tribbles. Possibly more than any episodes in TOS's short run, these two have spawned numerous plots, threads, and novels throughout the Trek timeline. Mr. Pevney was 96 when he passed.

How fortunate we are to have had the musical and directing talents of these men, both within Star Trek and without; how fortunate they were to have lived such long and notable lives.

(Hat tips to TrekToday and Dayton Ward)

It's April Fool's Day, which is often a relished opportunity for creative mischief. An outlet for such comic imagination used to be StarTrek.com — up until its managing geniuses were summarily executed. Fortunately, their past efforts are timeless and are still available through the magic of the Internet Archive. Courtesy its Wayback Machine, I present to you the hilarious news reports of April 1, 2005 (links will load slowly — be patient):

• Star Trek: Enterprise Saved … With Strings Attached
  
• Several New Star Trek Pilots Rejected
  
• Your Mirror Universe Twin and You
  
• The Galactic Enquirer
  
• GQ: Gorn Quarterly
  

Remember that three years ago this month, we were on the cusp of the cancellation of Enterprise. To see that first headline above set my heart atwitter — until I remembered the date. It was cruel of our overlords to toy with our emotions so carelessly… but they made up for it with the excellent Mirror Universe FAQ.

A few other pieces were not captured by the Wayback Machine but have been reposted to a Trek message board:

• Bakula Debunks "Holodeck" Rumor
  
• BBC to Remake Star Trek
  
• New Series Announced: Klingon Eye for the Starfleet Guy
  

It's nice to know humor will survive into the 24th century!

I can't help it: I love LOLcats. I hang onto the I Can Has Cheezburger? RSS feed for morsels of happiness in an otherwise bleak work day. Certainly some fans have taken the meme too far, such as translating the Bible into lolspeak — not that it's irreverant, but more that it's an incongruous pairing. And creating a lolcode programming language is just too esoteric.

But I didn't realize the opportunity for an effective extended work of lolspeak until today, as I was perusing the guest list for the upcoming ROFLCon. Finally, here is a match made in heaven: two of my favorite pursuits combined to form… LOLTrek.

Alas, only one episode of TOS has been adapted to this pidgin tongue, and it doesn't take long to scroll through its 60 frames. But a variety of inside jokes and consistent internal humor makes it a fun treat. Enjoy!

Tomorrow sees the release of Jumper, a movie about a young man (Hayden Christensen) who can instantly teleport to anywhere on the planet. He soon discovers this power puts him in the middle of two warring factions: people like him, known as Jumpers; and the Paladin organization, represented by Samuel L. Jackson, who believes Jumpers are a threat and must be destroyed.

Jackson must not have researched his quantum physics, as otherwise he'd know that teleportation inherently involves the act of destruction. It was one of many lessons recently learned at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when Christensen and Jumper director Doug Liman joined two MIT professors on a panel examining the science of teleportation. The presenters attempted to bridge not only fantasy and reality, but also the smart and the savvy. Though Christensen seemed out-of-place on such a cerebral panel, his presence drew a crowd to an evening of high-level science made fun and easy to understand.

Read the rest of this entry at Computerworld.com »

I admit it: I'm a Star Trek fanboy. Almost anything bearing the Star Trek name is instantly fantastic — it's just a matter of degree. Within that realm is a wide variety, from the awesomely fantastic (Deep Space Nine, First Contact) to the pathetically fantastic (Nemesis), but I'll still be first in line for all of them. Such zeal may make me a laughing stock… but I've found the most valuable trait of any hardcore geek is a healthy sense of humor.

Over the years, there have been multiple instances when the combination of geekdom and comedy intersected with brilliant results. The most mainstream occurrence was in 1999, when an all-star cast including Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Tony Shalhoub appeared in the feature film Galaxy Quest. The trailers of the time made the movie look like weak sci-fi fare intended for the unsophisticated masses, so I didn't see it until 2002 — at which time I wished I hadn't waited so long. I rewatched it this weekend and was again impressed with how much fun it was.

Galaxy Quest doubles as the name of a fictional cancelled television series, its cast of washed-up has-beens since having taken to the tour circuit, making their living signing autographs and reciting famous lines. But their reruns have been misinterpreted as historical documents by an alien civilization that has made into reality all elements of the show (think "A Piece of the Action"). These xenoforms abduct the thespian crew of the NSEA Protector to help their new ship and stave off extinction at the hands of a tyrannical despot (whose vehicle my 80-year-old movie buddy immediately identified as reminiscent of the Doomsday machine — a fitting homage!).

As an amalgam of fantasy and reality, Galaxy Quest succeeds in mocking the synonymous Star Trek as well as its actors and fans. Via the show-within-a-show device, everyone gets their turn: from the pomposity of William Shatner to the inevitable expendability of the red shirts to the obsessive fanboys. Even Star Trek alumni had the sense to appreciate the film.

It's likely many fans of Home Improvement saw Galaxy Quest as a Tim Allen vehicle, but I can't imagine the film being nearly as entertaining for those who have not seen Star Trek themselves. And if you're lucky enough to be one of those veterans of the original material, there are more hands-on opportunities to lampoon the franchise. RiffTrax, the downloadable audio commentaries from the talent that brought you Mystery Science Theater 3000, has thus far parodied 49 movies, and Star Trek has the dubious honor of being three of them. For a limited time, you can buy all three Star Trek RiffTrax for $8.99. Though admittedly that's a savings of only one dollar, it's still a great excuse to grab the MP3s to play alongside The Final Frontier, The Undiscovered Country, and Generations — the latter of which is sampled here:

Don't ever laugh at a Trekkie — but by all means, please do laugh at yourself. As Data would say, "It's a wonderful feeling!"

They say the mind is the first thing to go — yet it's a part of the organ we understand, and are able to replace, the least.

Now, Dr. Gordon Bell intends to bring Harry Potter's pensieve to life by developing a way to duplicate the memories of the human mind as easily as any other storage device. Via Slashdot, Fox News asks, "What if you could capture every waking moment of your entire life, store it on your computer and then recall digital snapshots of everything you've seen and heard with just a quick search?" A query meant to excite — or scare?

This is more a science and human interest story than a cinematic one, but consider how many films deal with cybernetic transplantation of humanity. Recreating the essence of man through artificial means is at the core of films such as Blade Runner and episodes of Star Trek like "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" in The Original Series and "Schizoid Man" in The Next Generation (in contrast to Bicentennial Man, which is about a robot becoming human). These fictions embody a very real fear of death and a desire to live on after the failure of the organic body.

But at what price immortality? Besides ethical and spiritual dilemmas, there are also legal and privacy issues inherent in such permanent records. Consider the low-tech solution currently employed by the inventor cited above: "Bell wears a SenseCam, developed by Microsoft Research, that takes pictures whenever it detects he may want a photograph. The camera's infrared sensor picks up on body heat and takes snapshots of anyone else in the room, adjusting itself as available light changes." How would you like to be in that room with Mr. Bell, knowing he was playing Big Brother?

There's a film that employs uses a similarly problematic technique for recording human experience: Robin Williams' The Final Cut. In this movie's world, parents have the option of having their unborn child implanted with an EyeTech Zoe chip. This chip piggybacks on its host's senses to create a visual and aural record of its carrier's experiences. This chip is extracted upon death; someone with the profession of "cutter" then uses this footage to create a 90-minute "Rememory", a montage of experiences by which the living can remember the deceased. A cutter is bound by only three rules: he cannot sell Zoe footage; he cannot mix footage from different Zoe implants for a rememory; and a cutter cannot himself have a Zoe implant.

I stumbled across this film two years ago, roughly at the same time I was given an open-ended assignment to "write something academic about something cinematic." At the time, I had also been reading plenty of Star Trek novels, and the intersection of the two media begged for comparison and contrast. I put two different implants — the Zoe chip and a Trill symbiont — under the microscope and came up with a 2,000-word paper entitled "Preservation of Memory as a Means of Immortality: A Science Fictional Approach".

Though the professors evaluated the essay favorably, neither were familiar with the background material. I've yet to find to find someone who is and can thus evaluate my work from that perspective. If you're a Trekkie who's seen The Final Cut and are interesting in reading the implications of each medium's method of providing permanent mental capacity, please drop me a note.

It's time for a brief look back at 2007 — brief, because my theatergoing is not what it once was. The number of movies I saw in theaters has fluctuated wildly since a decade ago, though it seems relatively constant over the course of this millennium:

1995: 22	1996: 43	1997: 70	1998: 53
1999: 37	2000: 30	2001: 12	2002: 16
2003: 15	2004: 11	2005:  9	2006: 14

This past year was very similar to its predecessor, with me taking in 15 theatrical films. It is not the prohibitive cost that keeps me from seeing more movies: a genetic condition permits me free tickets to any movie, anytime. It's more a matter of the time investment and working around the theater's schedule, whereas I can watch as much of a DVD as I want, whenever I want. Theatergoing also has a more social element than sitting at home in my pajamas, so I'm further limited by other people's geography and availability. Add in the fact that I don't have TV service and thus am not exposed unwillingly to commercials and trailers, and it takes some other rare factor, such as brand recognition, to make me aware and interested enough to warrant seeing a film.

Of the 15 films I saw in 2007, the best were Live Free or Die Hard, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and National Treasure: Book of Secrets. (I'd include Star Trek: The Menagerie as a theatergoing experience, but it technically was not a movie.) All three were rock'em, sock'em good action flicks that may've relied on tried-and-true formulae, but executed with finesse and humor.

This year's most disappointing movies were Spider-Man 3, 300, The Simpsons Movie, and The Golden Compass. And downright loathsome was The Transformers, which I recently saw the RiffTrax version of. Sadly, even Mike Nelson and crew could not improve on The Transformers, as I found it even more tedious on a second runthrough. Again, each of these films was based on an existing property, which perhaps led to high and ultimately unfulfilled expectations.

Which of 2007's films did you enjoy the most or least? Did I miss any you recommend?

A recent article on CNN.com reminded me that the Web holds a bounty of fan films based on the various Star Trek properties. This wasn't necessarily news to me: I'd once tried watching an episode of New Voyages, which aims to continue the five-year mission of the original Enterprise, but couldn't get past the recasting of the original stars. William Shatner's portrayal of James T. Kirk was too engrained in my mind for me to accept anyone else in the role; even in science fiction, suspension of disbelief has its limits.

But to see on CNN that this series won TV Guide's 2007 Online Video Award for Best Sci-Fi Webisodes, chosen over Battlestar Galactica, suggested I should look again. I'd thought the only way to watch New Voyages episodes was via streaming video, which I generally eschew — but poking around their Web site revealed a slightly preferable BitTorrent option. The episode I selected for our reintroduction was "World Enough and Time", written and directed by Marc Scott Zicree (author of "Far Beyond the Stars", possibly my favorite DS9 episode).

Again, I was assaulted by the casting of anyone but Shatner and Nimoy as Kirk and Spock, but this time I persevered. I'm glad I did, as even if the actors didn't nail the parts, I can't blame the writing, which comes across strongly. The sets are on par with the original series (which, despite being 40 years later, is pretty good for a fan film — authentic, too), and the sound effects and CGI are fluidly incorporated.

But the star of the show is none other than George Takei, playing the role of an older Sulu. Rather than looking out-of-place, this temporal anomaly is written into the story in flawless Trek fashion, in the spirit of "Time's Orphan". For this actor to have taken time away from Heroes to so accurately reprise this role for a free Web series speaks volumes of the integrity of both Mr. Takei and New Voyages. Yet newcomer Christina Moses almost steals the show, capturing the awe and innocence of a first-time space traveller with earnest mannerisms and subtle body language. As hard as the recast TOS icons worked, their best role was to frame these two actors' characters and performances. Altogether, the cast and story made every minute of the one-hour episode worth watching.

Looking through the episode list, it appears New Voyages' other offerings are equally star-studded. Story authors include David Gerrold (author of "The Trouble with Tribbles") and Dorothy Fontana (author of "Encounter at Farpoint", "The Enterprise Incident", and more), while among the actors are Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekhov and J.G. Hertzler as Harry Mudd.

The CNN article neglected to make a timely mention of a similar project: Star Trek: Of Gods and Men, which finally debuted today. This feature-length production can hardly be called a "fan film" when you consider its weighty cast: Walter Koenig (Pavel Chekhov), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), Grace Lee Whitney (Janice Rand), Lawrence Montaigne (Stonn from "Amok Time"), Gary Graham (Ambassador Soval), Alan Ruck (Captain John Harriman), Tim Russ (Tuvok), Ethan Phillips (Neelix), Garrett Wang (Harry Kim), J.G. Hertzler (General Martok), Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko), and Chase Masterson (Leeta) — as well as some alumni you won't recognize: Crystal Allen (an Enterprise Orion slave girl), William Wellman (a DS9 Bajoran officer), and Daamen Krall (a voice actor for the Star Trek: Starfleet Academy video game). Even "World Enough and Time"'s Kirk and Spock make appearances in other roles.

This dark, "Yesterday's Enterprise"-style mashup is every Trekkie's dream, though I worried it would've suffered from lengthy delays: the film was originally to be released back in April, and even now, only the first third, weighing in at 26 minutes, is available in low-quality streaming video. (Watch for a higher quality version once opening weekend demand dies down.) But what I've seen so far has me eager for more. These experienced actors are so comfortable in the Trek universe that watching them find new ways to play in it is a win-win for both sides of the camera.

The varying yet surprising quality of these "webisodes" has me looking at J.J. Abrams' pending TOS reboot in a new light. Both "World Enough and Time" and Of Gods and Men have demonstrated that a tight script and a talented cast can deliver an excellent story, regardless of the characters or the setting. But when that promise is exemplified best by Star Trek alumni, as is the case with the above two films, the concept of recasting the characters we know and love becomes a questionable proposition at best. I'm a bit more cautious now about the Christmas 2008 release — but I now know that, thanks to talented fans and actors, I have a wealth of new adventures to tide me over in the meantime.