Cinema Hype

If you’re already present on the internet—and if you’re not, you must be wired in via the Matrix, so congratulations on that—you may already know this: Star Trek has taken over the internet. Sure, there are other fandoms and other crazes circulating on, I guess, some tiny corner of the information superhighway (the corner owned by the Man, obviously), but currently, the Trekkies have pretty much staked their claim. This kind of upsurge in an already thriving fandom, of course, can only lead to a dark yet often hilarious corner of the human psyche.

And so today, I present Fun Star Trek Things I’ve Found on the Internet.

You’re welcome.

- This is only funny if you know that, on Heroes, Zachary Quinto (new Spock) plays a dude named Sylar. So now you know. And…you’re laughing, right?

- Top Ten Real-Life Star Trek Inventions

- Star Trek for breakfast! I don’t know. Shouldn’t the “live long and prosper” ones be whole wheat or something?

- Fans choose the best starter episodes for new Trekkie catch-up

- Star Trek recipes for your next themed dinner party!

- The thing you didn’t know you needed: Meerkat Star Trek officer dolls on Etsy. Looks like they’re sold out for now—well, sure—but that maybe she’s making more for all of your summer gifting needs.

Youtube is, of course, a special kind of repository for Trekkish fun, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up a few of the many, many Trek-themed videos out there. This doesn’t even scratch the surface, but hey, maybe you don’t really want to go beneath the surface, and with good reason.

This is amazing: Cribs, Spock-style, from an old G4 TV spot.

Awesome, disturbing, or both? And why? This must connect with some primal part of the brain. I don’t know.

Okay, not so much created by fandom as pointed out by fandom, but we’ve got Star Trek vs. Star Wars via Fanboys:

Side note: If I could alter Fabio, my VW Golf, to honk like a wookiee, I probably would. I’d probably use my horn more, too. A la my old Driver’s Ed teacher: “Daaaaaainjah, mah deah child. Dainjah!”

Hee, DJ Spock:

This could go on forever. Seriously. You think forty years of fandom plus a sudden and violent sci-fi revival isn’t going to generate some weird crap? Google is your friend here, but should you require more Trek-related (and, by way of warning, consistently NSFW, or possibly NSF lots of people) time-wasting fun, you might start with startrek_ontd. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. (Really. Consider yourself warned.)

Star Trek, fandom, Star Trek Youtube, Zachary Quinto, Heroes, William Shatner, Spock, Captain Kirk

Well, I should have known: as reader Heather said, “If you want to confuse a Trekkie, try a quote from #5. Nobody ever watches that one. Not more than once.” To think: I was so close. Curses! Foiled again!

Anyway, I lose. Reader/Star Trek aficionado Erik buzzed in on last week’s quotation, correctly tying this quotation:

“‘Permission to speak freely, sir?’
‘Granted.’
‘I do not believe this was a fair test of my command abilities.’
‘And why not?’
‘Because… there was no way to win.’
‘A no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face. Has that never occurred to you?’
‘No, sir, it has not.’
‘And how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn’t you say?’
‘As I indicated, Admiral, that thought had not occurred to me.’
‘Well, now you have something new to think about. Carry on.’”

to Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. Also, I feel that I would be remiss if I did not inform the non-Trekkies out there that this scene plays out between William Shatner and one Kirstie Alley. Do the Trekkies not think that’s funny? Because…that’s funny.

So, kudos to Erik and his Trek knowledge! Your cheer, sir:

You got the quote at full warp speed!
You know your sci-fi films indeed!
But do you count it in your creed?
Either way, we love your breed!

And now for a new QS to kick off the weekend:

The Rules

I will post a quotation from a movie. The first person to comment with the character, actor, and film that contains this quotation gets a special eyelash batting and a tailor-made Cinema Hype cheer, which might actually rhyme, even if it doesn’t make any sense.

The Deadline

If somebody guesses correctly, the prize cheer goes up as soon as possible. If nobody gets it right, I’m off the hook cheer-wise, and the next quotation is posted on Friday (…or not, like this week, but Friday is the norm) (Actually, this is proving to be the case less and less often. We’ll say I’ll shoot for sometime around the weekend. Friday, Sunday, Monday…something around there.)

The Quotation

“‘What do you think, man? You think it makes me look tough?’
‘I think it makes you look different.’
‘What’d you mean, “different”?’
‘Well, you got a hole in your mouth.’”

Think you’ve got it? Leave it in the comments.

Quotation Sensation, movie quote game, movie quotes, Star Trek, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Wrath of Khan, William Shatner, Kirstie Alley

In the run-up to the new Star Trek movie, I can only imagine some of the studio notes that must have gone out to director J.J. Abrams and writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. “Hey, guys, please create the biggest and best story installment for the largest, pickiest, and most enthusiastic fandom of all time. Should update the franchise for a new generation, restore faith in the film series for the oldsters, and erase decades of mockery. Must be emotionally resonant while also including epic explosions and flying debris. Many millions of dollars and the future of a pop-culture icon, not to mention your own careers, rest on your creatively endowed shoulders. No pressure, though!” It’s daunting, picking up the Star Trek mantle. Lots of people, including the Bad Robot team themselves, care deeply about this movie. They needn’t have worried: Star Trek is a shot in the arm for the series, both past and future.

This Star Trek is Star Trek for everybody: generalized enough for the uninitiated, and canon enough (and also meta enough—this generation of Trekkies has a healthy sense of irony) that it should satisfy all but the most die-hard and least humor-inclined fans. In a sense, it’s a look at the Star Trek series that could only have come from this particular generation. These guys are Trek geeks. They love the series and the movies with a love that is not even a little bit ironic. But they’re also able to see it through 40 years of creative distance and to appreciate it as an indelible part of the culture—which is why we get genuine Trek love as well as lines like “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a physicist!” It’s an entirely appropriate approach—affection mixed with unpretentious—especially considering how many adaptations of old TV stray either towards extreme seriousness or total camp, and fail completely in the process.

And then…oh, right. The movie. Abrams and the Bad Robot team were a good choice for this story, considering the joy they take in setting up difficult emotional dynamics and then promptly blowing up everything in sight. Here, they set up the characters right off the block (the sequence with a pre-adolescent James Kirk and his stepfather’s convertible is especially fun), followed by family angst (an Abrams specialty) and lots of stirring moments involving spaceships and warp speed. But it all hangs together: nothing is wasted, and nothing is “just for fun.” The budding friendship between Kirk and Spock is especially good, and will probably be lots of people’s favorite story element—everybody likes a good “rivals become friends” story, no? It’s possible that a few of the key character scenes could have been more emotionally robust, or more clearly illustrated, but they get the job done and are probably more touchy-feely than most of what the Trek franchise has seen in the past. And in any case, how does one set up an emotional arc for an emotion-averse half-Vulcan with family issues? So maybe they get a pass on that one.

The Bad Robot team also gets a pretty good leg-up from a uniformly strong cast, from leads down to relatively small supporting roles (Simon Pegg as Scottie; Karl Urban as Bones; John Cho as Sulu; Zoe Saldana as Uhura). The real find here, the person most likely to break out (…more) from this movie, is Zachary Quinto (as Spock; you may know him as Sylar from Heroes). He’s practically perfect in every way–this guy’s got focus, and watching him become more and more Spock-like in the face of everybody else’s freakouts is a total joy. A lot rides on him: if audiences detect even a hint of cheese, or irony, or non-commitment on Spock’s person, they will begin to take the movie less seriously. Quinto is spot-on, and so it’s not a problem. (It is awkward, however, to discover that Leonard Nimoy is kind of embarrassing during his scenes. How does Quinto out-Spock Spock?). While Quinto will probably receive lots of buzz, props should also go to Chris Pine as James Kirk. it’s tempting to think that, even without William Shatner’s dorkifying influence, James T. Kirk just isn’t capable of being a true badass hero, but Pine is plenty charismatic enough to carry the role and make us believe in Kirk. With any luck, Pine will be able to translate this success into other roles—the last thing he needs is to be Captain Kirk for the rest of his life. We already have one of those, after all.

If you are not a Star Trek fan, my advice is this: Go. Go with an open mind, and enjoy yourself, and maybe you’ll see what all the fuss is about. Maybe you’ll become a Trekkie after all. And if you ARE a Star Trek fan, well, you should go, too (like I could stop you). Go with an open mind, and enjoy yourself, and maybe you’ll see what the new generation (not to say the Next Generation) sees in your favorite fandom.

Either way—I’m sorry, but it’s got to be said—live long, and…you know.

Star Trek, Star Trek 2009, Star Trek movie, JJ Abrams, J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine, James T. Kirk, Captain Kirk, Spock, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban

The new trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen debuted last week, and it looks like it’ll be playing before Star Trek starting this weekend. Much of the cast and crew from the first Transformers has returned for the sequel, including action-movie heavy-hitter Michael Bay, master of the disorientingly close-up action shot.

Here’s the trailer:

So…let me get this straight. In the new Transformers movie, Shia LaBoeuf is Chuck Bartowski?

Let’s see: Sam (LaBoeuf) encounters an ordinary object, apparently planted in his path by some higher entity. Against his will and almost without his knowledge, said object provides top-secret information to his brain. When presented with certain sensory stimuli, his brain accesses the related information provided—one might say “uploaded”—to his head. Shall we call these episodes “flashes”? The bad guys want what’s in his mind; hijinks and misadventures ensue. I suppose Megan Fox is supposed to be Sarah in this scenario; wouldn’t it be so much cooler if, all this time, Sam’s biker-chick girlfriend has been reporting to the CIA? (Or is that just me?) (Also, Sarah Walker could totally take Mikaela Banes, just so you know.) Will the role of Crazy Scott Bakula here be played by John Turturro?

I could go on like this all day.

(…OMG, who plays Captain Awesome?)

Truthfully, though, this looks like fun; I’m especially taken with the shot on the ocean floor, assuming that alien automotive robots have mastered anti-rusting technology. Because, really, THAT would be disappointing.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen comes out June 24.

Transformers 2, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers, Shia LaBoeuf, Chuck Bartowski, Sarah Walker, Megan Fox, Michael Bay, John Turturro, Scott Bakula, Chuck

Via Something Awful:

Oh, Star Wars fans and the Internet. What would you do without each other?

For something to lift your entire mood, guaranteed—unless you don’t like things that are awesome and, at the same time, fairly well-informed—check out fine art under the influence of Star Wars.

You needed that on this Monday afternoon, didn’t you? I knew it. You’re welcome.

Star Wars, Star Wars art, links, funny