Moon Review

Hey all. I realize I've not been updating the last few days with the Legend of Zelda series. I've been out of town a lot the last few days, so I haven't really had the chance to play and blog. On one of my incursions out of town, I had a chance to see Moon, a new science fiction film that's hit a limited set of theaters around the country. Only one theater in the OKC area is even playing it, the Quail Springs AMC.
Moon is the first feature film from director Duncan Jones, better known as Duncan Zowie Heywood Jones, the son of David Bowie (whose actual name is Robert Jones).
The film stars Sam Rockwell, who gives, what I believe to be, his best performance ever. Kevin Spacey also provides the voice of GERTY, the computer/robot that is the sole companion of Sam Bell (Rockwell), a miner contracted to maintain the Selene moon base, where the company that hires him mines Helium-3, a gas found in lunar soil that is solving the Earth's energy crisis. Sam has two weeks left in his contracted three years and is eager to return to Earth to see his wife and finally meet his daughter in person when he begins seeing things that aren't there. Then, after an accident on the surface, Sam awakens to find that things aren't as they should be.
One of the most striking things about Moon is that it carries the torch of the cerebral, thinking-man's science-fiction of yesteryear. These days, science-fiction movies must have dumbed down storylines and a lot of explosions to have any hope of succeeding. That's probably why this particular film was kept to limited release, because it has no real action to it at all. Moon is more akin to sci-fi films like Kubrick's 2001: A Space Oddessey or Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth (which starred David Bowie), and not just because it's carried by a single man and a computer. This is a film that forces the audience to think about what is going on and makes them consider the morality behind the events that occur within the film. Hollywood simply doesn't make science-fiction films like this anymore and that is a damn shame.
I've always thought Sam Rockwell was underrated, but now I truly believe it. He carries this film singlehandedly and feels very believable as the everyman stuck alone on the moon. One doesn't tend to think "blue collar" when they think "astronauts," but that's what Sam Bell is and Rockwell portrays it wonderfully. I don't think it was quite a Best Actor worthy performance - but it may be worth a nomination. Then again, we still have another five months in the year for someone to out do him. It was definitely the finest performance I've seen from anything that's come out this year.
The film itself is a little slow to develop, mainly due to the lack of action sequences that moviegoers (myself included) are so used to in science-fiction. There is, however, a lot of dramatic tension that Jones manages to build consistently throughout the second and third acts and that helps propel the movie more smoothly.
Apparently, Jones is building his own movie mythology. He stated in an interview that he was planning on giving Rockwell a cameo in the next movie as Sam Bell. The next film will apparently tie into Moon but will be its own independent story and not a true sequel.
I think Jones is going to be one of the new directors on the scene that everyone needs to keep an eye out for. This is a stellar film for a first timer and it shows a lot of promise. Hopefully people will catch on and go see it. If you like things blowing up and can't stand quiet, cerebral films, it's not for you. If you see that Moon is playing somewhere near you, I highly recommend that you go see it if you like old-school science fiction. If it's not playing near you, rent it as soon as it's available. I'll probably be buying it to make my friends watch it.

- Nate

Star Trek - A Second Opinion

First off, I'm sorry for the lack of updates. The last week and a half has seen me moving into a new apartment and aiding the family while my grandmother was in the hospital (she's out and she's okay, by the way), and I just got Internet service in my new apartment tonight.

So, now on to our subject matter. On Monday, just after a too-thick-to-drink chocolate shake from the Warren's diner, Megan, Julie and I went to see Star Trek again. For me and Julie, it was a second viewing, for Megan it was a third (which is just ridiculous since she'd never even seen a Trek movie before I gave her a crash course in the franchise over the last few months, yet she's seen the movie more than I have).
In any case, I walked out of the film with a more tempered opinion of it than the one I put up in my initial review.
Frankly, I was still on a contact high of brand new Trek after the disappointment of Star Trek: Nemesis in 2003 and the cancellation of Enterprise (which was just starting to get really good) in 2005. The movie was certainly quite good, but I definitely overlooked some of its flaws because I was still giddy from having just seen it.
So how does it hold up now? Aside from some science-geek and cinemaphile nitpicks and a highly-underdeveloped villain, quite well. It's still fast-paced and incredibly fun, it still has some superb special effects and it still has some great acting. Where it falls flat are the characterization of Eric Bana's Nero and some glaring logic problems (that, admittedly, most movie viewers would not cue on to).
Nero simply didn't get enough screen time nor enough to do. I probably did not catch on to this initially due to the fact that I read IDW's comic Star Trek: Countdown, which featured a story by the film's writers, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. This comic gives the details of what happened in the 24th century that made Nero as insane and vengeful as he is in the film. When I first saw Star Trek, I didn't question anything about Nero because I knew why he was the way he was. However, this time I noticed that all that's really said is that Romulus, Nero's home planet, was destroyed by a supernova (a science nitpick I'll get to in a bit) and he wanted to make the whole galaxy suffer for not helping to save his planet. Nero simply isn't developed enough. I think the writers aimed to make him more of a tragic villain, yet other than an image of Nero's wife who died in the calamity, we're never given any real reason to connect with Nero. There is nothing shown to make the audience connect with him in some way, to feel any sort of sympathy. Had we seen Nero as a man so torn by grief that he's fallen into insanity, he would have been a high effective villain - and Trek movies have a tendency for great villains, like Kahn, Chang and the Borg Queen. However, all we see is an insane, flamboyant, tattooed Romulan who we know very little about and who simply seems to want to watch the galaxy burn.
Another thing that irked me this time was not glaring but flaring (pun intended). For the most part, I love JJ Abram's cinematographic style in the film - with it's documentary style camera movements and angles. What I didn't like was the fact that every other second, there is a lens flare. Most were small and subjected to the sides of the screen, but on occasion there would be one that would totally white out the picture and it started to get on my nerves. The little ones I could deal with, but the big ones that interrupted my field of vision started to annoy me. I even found a humorous edit of the trailer for the Original Series episode "Space Seed" with the lens flares added in, so I apparently wasn't the only one who noticed. It's not really a problem with the film itself, but it started to bug me. It's something I can learn to ignore, however.
The science-geek in me had some problems with the science of the movie, namely supernovae and black holes. Generally, Trek has been really good about keeping to actual science (for the most part), so it was a bit of a disappointment to see problems like that. Apparently, Romulus was destroyed by a supernova that hit with little warning (an event depicted in Countdown, which likewise gave me the same thought). However, even a supernova of a nearby star to Romulus would have taken years to reach the planet, unless it was the Romulan star itself, because supernovae move at less than the speed of light - so there would have been plenty of warning and, thus, Nero would have no reason to be so angry. Also, a black hole is created at one point in the film, and the subsequent destruction shows that everything that is destroyed by it is simply sucked in. However, the debris would have formed a visible accretion disk that would orbit the black hole. That's a minor quibble and doesn't present much of a logic problem for the story as the supernova one does, but oh well, that's just me griping cause I've taken an astronomy class and actually learned something.
All in all though, I won't contradict everything I said in the first review, because those opinions still held true. I loved the acting and the story. I loved the action set pieces and I was still just as blown away by the incredible special effects. It's not as perfect as I initially made it out to be, but it's still a great movie in all respects.

One more gripe about it: I never want to watch it in anything but High Definition, because the film is simply gorgeous to look at. Unfortunately, I don't have an HDTV or a Blu-Ray player. So when this movie hits home video, I'm out of luck. Anybody have any high paying jobs to offer me?

- Nate

Terminator Salvation - Review

Warning: There are some spoilers in this review, but if you've seen the trailers, then you should already know this stuff.
I'll be straight with you. It was very difficult for me to just take in Terminator Salvation as a movie in its own respect. I constantly found myself comparing it to the previous Terminator films, especially the first and second, as well as the excellent (but unjustly cancelled) TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
The film essentially follows two interwoven plotlines, one involving John Connor (Christian Bale) and the more prominent one involving Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). Both characters start at different places, with the opening of the film set in 2003, where Marcus agrees to donate his body to science after his impending execution. Cut to 2018, where John Connor is fighting the machines and we soon see Marcus alive and well. The film proceeds to tell these two characters' stories, focusing more on Marcus than John Connor. This decision is slightly contrary to what a Terminator fan like me might expect, since John Connor is supposed to be so important to the resistance against the machines yet he is only playing a supporting role here to Marcus in their eventually shared quest to protect Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin).
One problem that immediately struck me was how much the trailers gave away about the plot. Several trailers reveal that Marcus is at least partially cybernetic, and since the reveal of this is a good hour into the movie, it fell very flat and didn't have the impact it could have. Any time Marcus got thrown around before they finally revealed him, I found myself wondering if they'd finally show him to be a machine.
Another problem is that much of the performances just feel wooden. In the first couple of scenes, I was concerned Bale would be doing his Batman-growl through the entire film, but that luckily didn't happen. Worthington seemed to just shout a whole lot, but he did seem to manage to give the character some substance. Common's and Bryce Dallas Howard's roles turned out to be largely forgettable. Moon Bloodgood proved to be a strong point, but it was Yelchin that I felt stole the show. He brought a sense of humanity to the character that I felt was missing from the rest.
In the context of the franchise, Salvation lacks the strong characterization that pervades other entries in the franchise, especially the second film. The film simply felt hollow, with none of the other characters aside from Reese and his small mute sidekick, Star, really connecting with me. At the very least, John and Marcus both managed to capture my attention in the last forty-five minutes or so, but the failure of getting both protagonists to connect with the audience shows a strong failing in the film. And perhaps it's because this film is set entirely in the future that this film can't be as humanizing as the first two. It's simply an entirely different type of story. Another problem within the context of the franchise is that John seems to be terribly open about the fact that Kyle Reese is (or will be) his father. We know that in 2027, Reese goes back in time to protect Sarah Connor, but this movie is set in 2019, years before anyone but John know about the existence of a time machine. And yet, there he is exclaiming in front of everyone that Kyle Reese is his father, and no one, not even the people who don't know John, question him on how that's possible. I feel, as a fan, that it was a critical error on the part of the writers to not make John's need to keep his heritage a secret.
There were some nice nods to continuity, such as the recorded diaries from his mother (voiced by Linda Hamilton) that John listens to throughout as well as the initial appearance of the T-800, which sported a decent if sometimes obvious CGI rendering of Arnold Schwarzenegger's face circa the first movie. A few lines are lifted directly from the other movies as sort of in-jokes for the audience and a couple of locales are at least reminiscent of locations in the first two movies.
One strong point in the film was that there were some really great action set pieces. I was especially impressed by a desert highway chase involving Marcus and Kyle aboard an old tow truck with two motorcycle-like Terminators pursuing them and by a chase sequence involving Marcus and John through the resistance base camp. If only for the glitz factor alone, Salvation is fun to watch.
Overall, Terminator Salvation is an enjoyable film to watch and certainly doesn't feel as campy or forced as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It lacks a certain substance found in the first two films (especially the director's cut of the second), but it definitely shows potential for future sequels - which are definitely coming. The film would have benefited from a more singular focus in its plot and strong use of characterization. I almost feel like those missing elements might have been cut on the editing room floor. I'd be very curious to see an extended cut of the film. In all, if you're looking for a fun post-apocalyptic free-for-all, I'd certainly go see it.

The Second Coming of Star Trek

Well, folks, I've seen it. At 7PM tonight at the Warren Theater in Moore, OK, the Voice of the Theater spoke, the trailers rolled and then it began. The film I've been anticipating for something close to the last two years.
Star Trek.
The JJ Abrams-directed, Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman-written flick is both a loving tribute to and fresh breath if life into the Star Trek franchise. In fact, I would go on to say that this is one of the best science-fiction films to be released in years.
The film is a sort of sequel, prequel and reboot at the same time. Through some complicated bits of time travel and back story, actions that take place in the twenty-forth century of the timeline that's been set up by the last forty years of Trek and creates a new, separate timeline. This allows the filmmakers to create a story that both honors the established canon and creates new opportunities for story telling at the same time. The film proceeds uninhibited by the veritable Sword of Damocles of canon constraints, which makes for surprising twists of story that this life-long Trekkie did not expect to see. It sets up a new franchise with some very interesting possibilities.
The film itself is nothing short of epic. The script is wonderful, managing to incorporate the strong characterization inherent within the franchise along with strong crowd-pleasing action sequences. Every time I thought they had spent too long focusing on the action, they relented with character moments and that made the movie all the more enjoyable for me, as a bona fide Trekkie.
I said on this blog last October that as long as the characters felt right, I would be satisfied with this film. Other than a few minor parts, the casting and characterization of these iconic characters was nothing short of awe-inspiring. The most prominent reason for this is the spot-on casting, especially the choices of Chris Pine as Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy and Zoe Saldana as Uhura.
Pine simply exudes with the brash confidence that one would expect of a young Kirk. This is exceptionally well done because Kirk does not remain this way through out the entire film, but has a definite growth over the course of the film - seen especially well in a moment when Uhura tells Kirk that she hopes he knows what he's doing, and rather than providing a cocky quip that he would have delivered earlier in the film, his only reply is an honest "So do I." I did not expect to love Pine's performance nearly as much as I did.
Quinto was perhaps the most obvious choice for Spock that anyone could have come up with. Between his resemblance to a young Leonard Nimoy and the cool and unattached performance that he's given as Sylar on Heroes, he was a simple shoe-in for the role. He excellently portrays the emotional turmoil that is presented to Spock due to his heritage as well as the hardships he faces through the course of the film.
It seemed that Karl Urban was possessed by the spirit of DeForest Kelley while filming Star Trek. He doesn't just portray the character well, he is Dr. Leonard H. "Bones" McCoy. He has an incredibly strong introduction nearly the beginning of the film and the consistency with which he delivers the character persists throughout without ever feeling like imitation. Between his wonderfully in-character scripting and the way he performed the part, Urban was simply a joy to watch.
Saldana's Uhura was refreshing because the character was finally given her due. Throughout the original series and the movie, Uhura was ever present, but without much to do story-wise. In this new film, she plays a major role and her interactions with both Kirk and Spock give her far more character than she's ever had before. Uhura was always sort of a blank slate, a character that we never really knew much about. In fact, a running plot point in the film is the mystery behind her first name, something that was never once said before in any of the episodes or films. So seeing Saldana really give the character substance was great.
As for the rest of the cast, they were very strong, but perhaps not as much as the previous four. Simon Pegg was hilarious as Scotty, and while Scotty was used for a fair amount of comic relief in the episodes and movies, he has his serious moments. In this, he's given nothing and I'm hoping that he'll be given more to work with in the sequel.
Likewise, Anton Yelchin's Chekov was nothing but comic relief, with a few jokes on the accent and such. Yelchin does put his heart into the performance, staying true to Walter Koenig's campy Russian accent and being the exuberant youth at the navigation console.
John Cho isn't really given much to do as Sulu other than one cool fight sequence. It's hard to give a verdict on his performance.
Surprisingly, I found myself slightly disappointed with Leonard Nimoy's return as the future Spock. Mostly it was the portrayal I would have expected, with Spock even seeming like he had developed more since the last time we saw him. Unfortunately, there were simply a few lines that I felt were forced and those just kind of bugged me.
The special effects and sound are nothing short of amazing. From the opening shots of the battle between the Kelvin and the Narada to the ice planet monsters, this film looks and sounds positively incredible. I continually found myself in the theater thinking "Wow" at many of the effects shots.
Perhaps, though, the greatest achievement of all is the film's accessibility. My friend Megan was in the group I saw the film with tonight. She came in relatively fresh, with very little experience with Trek. I had had her watch the second, third, fourth, sixth and seventh films to kind of give her some background and a feel for the characters. She expressed it best when she said that it was a good enough movie that she thought anyone would like it, but it had enough nods to things she'd seen by watching other Trek that it made her feel like she was in the know. If this film can attract all the new fans that I think it could, then perhaps we'll get to watch more new Star Trek for years to come and, as a fan, that is wonderful.
Though, it's not that I didn't have some minor problems here and there with things. For one, I didn't care for the usage of Beastie Boys in one of the scene - I mean, the film already had such a great score in all the other scenes, couldn't they have used that? Also, the way Kirk jumps so high up in rank so quickly felt contrived and unrealistic. Some of the comedic scenes also got a little too ridiculous at times, feeling more slapstick than the usual dry humor found in the franchise. These problems, though, were not enough to ruin the film for me.

In the end, I definitely need to see it once, twice or maybe a third or fourth time more. But this is most definitely one of my new favorite Trek movies and it easily equals the caliber of The Wrath of Kahn,The Undiscovered Country and First Contact or even surpasses them. I haven't quite decided yet.

Star Trek is back. Or, to quote James T. Kirk at the end of the fourth film, "My friends, we've come home."

- Nate

Clawing at Wolverine

Haha! I'm so clever with titles, aren't I?

(Warning, there will be some spoilers.)

So, last Friday I went off to see X-Men Origins: Wolverine with my good friend Megan. Admittedly I had fairly mixed expectations. I saw some of the trailers and set pics early on, thinking that it probably wasn't going to be that good of a movie. Then, after the famous Internet leak of a work-print, I heard a lot of positive buzz and I started to get excited. But then, but Thursday evening, I saw where the film's rating on RottenTomatoes.com was a pitiful 37%. So I really wasn't sure what to expect.
Wolverine ends up a film that starts fairly strong and then descends into cliche and some glaring logic problems.
The opening, an altered but relatively true to the comics take on the emergence of Wolverine (James Logan in the movie, though the character was originally named James Howlett in the Origin comic which this scene is taken from) was great. It's followed by a spectacular look at Logan and Victor Creed (later known as Sabretooth) as they fight through every major war from the Civil War until Vietnam during the opening credits. This sequence shows especially well how Logan and Victor start to grow apart based on their individual taste, or distaste in Logan's case, for violence and death. A montage used to show characterization is a somewhat rare thing in a film, so I appreciated its use.
After some scenes meant to get Logan and Victor on William Stryker's Team X, there is a fun action sequence where the members of Team X show off their talents. Ryan Reynolds shines here in his delivery of Wade Wilson (the future "Merc with a Mouth," Deadpool). Then some nice, if dragging, scenes with Logan working as lumberjack, putting his life behind him with a pretty wife.

And upon the death of that wife, it just goes downhill with a giant Hugh Jackman-yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Literally, from that point, the film delves into cliche and horrible logic problems. As if the Episode III-Darth Vader-"Where's Padme?"-reaction at his wife's death wasn't enough, through the course of the film we see a 1964 Harley-Davidson with Wolverine atop bursting out of an exploding barn, that same motorcycle inexplicably survive direct hits from a .50 caliber machine gun, and a walk into the sunset near the end (though it does have a nice little twist).

The one thing that bothered me more than any was the glaring plot hole caused by Logan, Victor and Remy Lebau (Gambit). The film makes it clear that Gambit would like to see Victor dead. Logan, who also wants Victor dead, approaches Gambit for help but Gambit sees that Logan wears similar dog tags to Victor's and therefore doesn't trust him. Logan exits the building to find Victor. Gambit follows him out and his behind Logan when Logan elbows him the face, apparently knocking him out. Logan and Victor fight and just as Logan looks ready to finish Victor off... Gambit is suddenly running across the rooftops and jumps off and delivers a big kinetic shockwave to both Victor and Logan, preventing Logan from dealing the obvious death he was about to bestow on Victor. And then, Logan and Gambit both simply let Victor walk off after that.
How did Gambit suddenly get on the roof tops? No idea. Why did Gambit prevent the death of someone he wanted dead? No idea. Oh, and why did Logan just let Victor walk off? Again, no idea.

And let's not go into the mockery they made of the origins and powers of Deadpool, or the ridiculously useless boxing match between Logan and Blob, or the totally inaccurate depictions of Emma Frost and Silverfox (For one, those two aren't sisters!). Whereas many other Marvel comic films have managed to streamline the origins and cinematic translations of the characters with a fair amount of finesse, Wolverine is haphazardly done, as if a ten-year-old was sitting around saying "Wouldn't it be cool if Deadpool had laser eyes?!". The film breaks so far from the source material that it offends Marvel fans by default.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, quite simply put, is a mess. I couldn't give anyone a recommendation to see it. Though, once it's on DVD, making a drinking game around it could be really fun - like every time there is a total logic problem, a cliche or a plot hole, you take a drink. Yep, that would get you hellaciously drunk.

- Nate

Crogan's Vengeance Review

Hey guys, this is sort of a special review for me today. Crogan's Vengeance is a fun historical adventure graphic novel by Chris Schweizer, son of Mark Schweizer, who is known for his St. Germaine series of mystery novels.
I'll admit, I have some bias on this book because of an online pen-pal-type friendship I've had with Chris for the last few years. I first got turned onto his work when I stumbled across his old band's Purevolume account. That band was called Calico Jack and, the pirate aficionado I am, I had to check it. Chris and I have traded messages online on and off ever since.
Well, I'd been waiting awhile for Crogan's Vengance to be released by Oni Press, and when I found out it had, I immediately rushed out to good ol' Silver Bullet Comics here in Norman. I figured if anybody would have it, they would. Lucky me, they had got one copy in the day before and I bought it on the spot.
And I am sure glad I did. Crogan's Vengeance is a hell of a lot of fun to read. The best I compare it to is an Errol Flynn movie rolled into a comic strip. Schweizer's pacing is excellent, and the story keeps moving briskly. Even the scenes low on action play out quickly because the characters pop out so well and are distinct. "Catfoot" Crogan is the type of gentleman rogue that everyone can love while the villainous D'or is just as easy to hate. Schweizer has a classic sense of story, evoking the spirit of classic Hollywood historical epics without descending into parody. Characters are fun and engaging and dialogue is witty and brisk. The plot is also quite clever, leaving the reader wondering what scheme Catfoot is going to come up with next. Schweizer's command of history, especially pirate history, is also quite admirable. He sticks to the facts and brings in enough real history to make any pirate geek like me smile.
Schweizer also illustrated Crogan's Vengeance and he did it quite well. First off, the pages are all black and white, which adds to the classic feel of the novel. Even in black and white, the book has wonderful atmosphere and he captures movement really well. A sequence involving a ship nearly capsizing during a storm is especially impressive. His characters are exaggerated to cartoon proportions, which helps them stick out more from one another, while his backgrounds style relatively simple but still realistic.
Overall, this book is simple wonderful. Its swashbuckling charm should be enough to win over any fan of comics or of pirates (or those who, like me, are fans of both). Luckily, this is but the first in a series following the different members of the Crogan family throughout history. Crogan's March, which tells the tale of French Legionairre Peter Crogan, circa 1912, is set to come out in 2009.
Oh, and one more thing, even in hardcover, Crogan's Vengeance will only put you out $14.95. It's well worth the money.

- Nate

Quantum of Solace (+Star Trek trailer)

Essentially an extended epilogue to Casino Royale, the new James Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, is heavier on action than the 2006 franchise reboot but not quite as engaging when it comes to characters.
From minute one, the audience is taken through the high-octane life of the 00 Agent as he tries to track down the mysterious organization that his love from the previous film, Vesper, was working for when she betrayed him and killed herself. Bond swears he's doing his duty, but the trail of bodies he leaves in his wake seems to prove otherwise.
I've been a big fan of the Bond movies since I first saw the Connery-era Diamonds Are Forever. I've always been especially appreciative of the Connery films because the character of Bond seems so much richer than the Bond we see in the days of Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan, in a world of ridiculous (though, admittedly, quite fun) gadgets and zero character consequences. So when Casino Royale came out, I was delighted to see a Bond film where Bond felt like a real man working in the real world with real consequences, to an even stronger degree than the early Connery films.
Quantum of Solace does feature these things, but I would say to a lesser degree than its predecessor. While Bond does have to grow and, in the end, get over the betrayal he felt from Vesper, I didn't see as much of that growth as I'd have liked. At points it seemed like false alarms, a friend (whom I won't reveal for the sake of anyone who hasn't seen it) dies in his arms and just when you think Bond is realizing what his actions are costing him, he turns around and leaves his friend's body in a dumpster, saying that he wouldn't care about it. Ultimately, we do have a satisfying emotional payoff, but the ending of this film simply wasn't as resounding as Casino Royale. Whereas in the first of these two films, we see Bond go from a somewhat eager new 00 Agent to the cold-hearted assassin that Ian Fleming made famous, we see Bond go from cold-hearted assassin to an even colder-hearted assassin.
The action scenes were also quite good, though a few of the action sequences seemed a bit contrived for this more realistic take on Bond. But, to be fair, none of those were too contrived, because I didn't even remember how contrived they were until I started this paragraph.
It was a hell of a ride and will still be an important chapter in the legacy of this new Bond (and, by the way, I like Daniel Craig in the role as much as I like Sean Connery). I'd say it didn't quite live up to the bar set by Casino Royale, but ultimately you still get a great film.

As for the trailer for JJ Abrams's Star Trek, a film I have already discussed at length on this blog... I don't know. I sincerely hope that the trailer is not indicative of the entire package. To me, Star Trek is about the characters. Yes, a Trek film needs its fair share of action, but the characters are supposed to come first. Look at Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country or Star Trek: First Contact. All three of these have a good blend of character and action, with a little humor, and are widely considered to be some of the best of the films. I realize the trailer is only two minutes of a two hour movie, but I hope JJ Abrams knows what he's doing. I'm still optimistic, but I'm also wary. As long as the spirit of Trek is preserved, and we get a good movie, I'll be happy.
One thing that worries me though: I live in a college town and there were a lot of my fellow college students in the theater. At the end of the trailer, I heard a fair amount of snickering. They had better get pretty creative with their marketing to entice my generation to go see this movie. There's still a bit of a social stigma assigned to people who are openly Trek fans. They need to make sure this looks like a movie that everyone is going to want to see, Trekkie or not.

- Nate

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (PS3) - Review

I suppose this is a little late in coming, since Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, developed by LucasArts, came out in the middle of September. I, however, just completed the game today in my efforts to relax on this lovely three-day weekend I've had.
I suppose curiosity killed the cat when it comes to me shelling out the $8 it cost me for a five day rental (thank you, Blockbuster), but with this game being hailed as official canon and all, I just had to play through. So, wanting to witness the new Euphoria engine that LucasArts has been touting about for the last couple of years as well as find out what the hell Darth Vader was up to with some secret apprentice, I decided to devote my weekend in passionate gaming on my roommate's PS3.
The result turned out to be a mostly positive experience.
The game follows Darth Vader's secret apprentice, codenamed Starkiller, as he terrorizes the galaxy at Vader's bidding, taking down Jedi that survived Order 66 (the other nerds out there will know that that is the order given by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith to exterminate the Jedi) and making sure no one, Imperial or otherwise, lives to say they saw him.
Storywise, the game is solid. Some of the advertising might have you believe that there are branching paths to take in the game, but it follows the same path until just before your final boss fight, where you decide whether to follow the Light Side of the Force or give in to the Dark Side. Though the plot was somewhat predicatable, especially the Light Side ending (which is the "official" ending that fits into Star Wars canon), it is still fun and there are a few good surprises in there. Rather than try to barrell through the game a second time before I had to take the game back to Blockbuster, I just found the Dark Side ending on Youtube. It was good, but it didn't have the same sense of resolution as the Light Side.
The use of actual actors for motion capture, likenesses and voice was a brilliant move on LucasArts' part, because it makes the characters feel much more natural and empathetic. Not to mention the fact that these characters now might be able to make the transition to live action via the forthcoming live action Star Wars TV series set in the same time frame. However, I think they should have made an effort to get James Earl Jones and Ian McDiarmid in to voice Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, respectively. Though Matt Sloan's Vader is downright perfect sometimes, it often just doesn't sound quite right. Surprising, Sam Witwer (known to some genre fans as the short-lived Crashdown in Ron Moore's updated Battlestar Galactica), who portrays Starkiller, also portrayed the Emperor and did a good, but not great, impersonation.
Now, for the technical stuff.
Anybody who has ever played God of War or Devil May Cry will probably be pretty comfortable with The Force Unleashed. It's all about fast combat and beating the ever-loving shit out of stuff in very cool ways. Literally, you can pick up a Stormtrooper with the Force, swing him around a bit, zap him with some lightning, throw your lightsaber into his gut and then fling him into an abyss. Starkiller is nicely customizable with the games levelling system. Basically, with every level you gain, you get points in three different areas - Powers, Combos and Talents - that allow you to decide which Force Powers to upgrade, which awesome melee and force combos to learn (getting them all by the end of the game is not difficult) and what attributes you want, such as more life and less damage taken or faster recharge rates on your Force Powers. Also, you can customize Starkiller with different lightsaber crystals and costumes that you can find hidden throughout the game's levels. It's a fun system to work with, because you have to make strategic decisions about what to upgrade based on your playing style. I, for instance, tended to use combos of Lightning with melee attacks, so I bolstered my defenses so I could survive longer at close range and increased the potency of my lightning attacks. It's much more satisfying than having all of your abilities and attributes pre-determined, though it's not a system that hasn't been done before.
Also, much like God of War, there is a high degree of repetitiveness, because all you really do is barrell through constant streams of enemies until you hit a boss, most of which can be killed with similar tactics, and then have to go through some interactive cutscenes that at least look cool enough to make the monotonous fights a little better. I would live to have seen LucasArts come up with a few more animations than they did for the interactive kill sequences on some of the larger non-boss enemies. It was cool to see Starkiller finish off an AT-ST by jumping up between its legs and cutting it in half, but after the eighth or ninth time, it was just boring.
Some greater attention to some of the gameplay mechanics would have been nice too. The Force Grip was something I found especially flawed. The environments were full of objects that could potentially be picked up and thrown at unsuspecting enemies, or with enemies that could be picked up and thrown at other enemies, but it proved so difficult to control anything with the dual analog control I largely ignored it until the final section of the game when I had a bit more control over it. The targetting system was especially flawed, because it changes as you move, so you might have your eyes set on a Stormtrooper running from your left to right that you want to zap with lightning, but end up missing him completely because your target won't stay with him. This also plays a role in the times when you really need to use that grip ability and just came seem to grab the object.
There were points where these flawed gameplay mechanics made the game insanely difficult. There were also points where the game was just flatout difficult in general. In an effort to add to Starkiller's general badassery, the game is often filled with dozens of enemies at one time. Sure, when you clear out a hangar full of Stormtroopers, nasty assault droids and a couple AT-STs, it's pretty satisfying. But not when you have to start over ten or eleven times because it's so hard to stay alive. Battles against other Jedi characters were also frustrating, especially the second to last boss fight, because some Force attacks seem completely impossible to dodge.
One last technical thing, all the claims of technical acheivement LucasArts made with this game fell short. I saw occasional framerate drops, which sometimes left Starkiller vulnerable in a tight spot. Also, the "advanced physics engine" needs tweaking, especially its collision physics, because I often found Starkiller running with half his body through a wall, standing on things he shouldn't have been able to and looking like he was floating while running uphill. I never really did see this advanced enemy AI that had them reacting realistically to being thrown around, because there were so many enemies on screen most of the time that I couldn't take the time to notice.
In the end, I generally enjoyed my experience with The Force Unleashed. If LucasArts can deliver another compelling story and fix some of the gameplay issues, I'd happily play a sequel.

7.5/10