The League sees the All-New Star Trek

Vroooom! Vrooom! Vroooooooooom!



Spoilers Ahoy. Be forewarned.

So, okay. I really liked the new Trek.

There's a lot of plot and story issues with the movie, I'm not going to fib. Characters' motivations don't make sense (especially our villain, the catalyst for the plot), and its sort of derivative. And, if what they did is what I think they did, it would give longtime Trek fans a long, long moment of pause.

But...

If you're like me and felt the past ten years or so of Trek has taken a turn for the not-so-great, and you never quite got over the original series, then this is a welcome change.

Prior to the new movie, I watched "Star Trek: The Motion Picture", the Alan Dean Foster penned, post "2001: A Space Odyssey", post "Star Wars" relaunch of the Star Trek franchise. And the differences between the two movies really couldn't be more pronounced in structure, pacing, philosophy, etc... The new movie is much, much more in the vein of the high-octane action movies of the past few years that had left the Trek franchise limping pretty far behind.

The movie does do a great job of introducing the characters and distilling down a lot of character bits developed over the decades into one cohesive narrative. There may be new actors in the Starfleet uniforms, but the writers were pretty intent on making sure that the characters that they'd loved for so many years are still intact, even if its coming from a slightly different angle. This most likely won't throw off too many viewers, what with the relaunch of other popular franchises of late, from Batman to James Bond (and us comic fans are very, very used to the whole "Earth 1, Earth 2" concept. As Trek fans should be, from "Mirror, Mirror".)


My all-new imaginary friends

The story moves at Warp 10, so its possible to miss the plotholes and/ or not care too much about them. And... this should give you an idea regarding how pleased I was with the movie, it really doesn't matter a whole lot whether the plot adds up or not. The movie isn't here to spin a crazy new plot for the Star Trek franchise, its here to get a new generation of viewers hooked on the antics of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Uhura, Sulu and the rest.

One of the things I'd loved about Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the scale of the thing. From the interior of the Enterprise (something rarely explored, and - oddly- not emphasized much in any other incarnation), to the vastness of space and the possibilities for craft size, etc...

While the FX of ST:TMP still hold up, the new film takes advantage of the power of CG in a way that the past fifteen years of Trek have struggled. Its a really great looking movie, even if the battle scenes do become a bit unnecessarily chaotic at times (but less so than the average Michael bay travesty).

The interior of the Enterprise, etc... actually makes some sort of sense and the designers must have considered what actual engine rooms on battleships, etc... look like, rather than just imagining a living room with glowy things. And the bridge is representative enough of the classic bridge, with what seems like a reasonable update in technology, etc...

I was genuinely pleased with the performances of everyone, even when a few scenes may have gone a little slapsticky for the Trek franchise. But it also generated humor in a film that wasn't going to count on laughs just from a fawning fanbase laughing at some insider joke.

It's a fast-paced popcorn flick that does its job admirably. And, after having paid the same amount to see "Wolverine" last week, I can verify that you could do a lot, lot worse.

Whether or not they dug themselves into all kinds of complications for a sequel remains to be seen. They certain had enough issues with the plot, how they handled... ahem... different versions of characters, etc... could be incredibly problematic. But I don't want to assume the worst until we get another installment.

For more, I recommend reading Jason's spoiler-rific review. Also, my rundown of my moderate Trek fandom.

Trek and Me

Ed. note: This isn't my Trek review. I'll get to that later.

When I was a very small kid, I recall watching Trek re-runs a little bit. There was a cartoon I caught once or twice, but I was mostly into Star Wars, so the pacing and lack of space ninjas and whatnot was just not that exciting to me. They spent an awful lot of time talking on Star Trek, and too little time shooting at stuff or employing Ewoks an cannon fodder.

In 2nd or 3rd grade, someone showed me Star Trek: The Motion Picture on VHS, and I mostly remember being painfully, painfully bored. Until the end, which I found trippy and awesome. Somehow back then I knew exactly what Voyager was (I'll thank The Admiral), and so it sorta made sense where they were coming from. I appreciated the scope of the movie, but as an ADD-riddled kid, it was just so sloooooow.

Summer after 3rd grade, we stayed at my grandparents in Missouri, and though I had not seen Star Trek II, we rented Star Trek III one night (they owned a VCR. We did not.), and watched the movie, which I recall really liking. We also watched that Nostradamus documentary that everyone watched back then, and I liked that less because it predicted nuclear armageddon in my lifetime. Sure, some of it freaked me out, but I liked the Klingons and sort of pseudo-sciency stuff around Genesis.

In 4th grade we moved to Austin, and I had a lot of downtime around 5:00pm for some reason. 5:00 was also when KBVO showed Star Trek reruns. So each afternoon I'd decamp to the TV and try to watch Trek. The episodes that really stick out are The Cage, Arena, the salt monster episode, The Trouble with Tribbles, The Enemy Within, and many, many others. Mirror, Mirror, of course...


My make-believe buddies in 4th grade

There was also one where McCoy was driving around Spock's body by remote control for some reason, and I thought that was the craziest thing, ever.

I got into the characters at that point, sort of lionizing Mr. Spock in particular. So I sort of bought into the Trek thing pretty hard. Not like Reed, Jason's new pal... but I was into Trek. In fact, I remember trying to talk to friends at school about Trek, and it seemed (and this is a painful stereotype, but its true), the kids in my nerd/honors classes were always much more inclined to be into Trek than the rest of my classmates. It was a sort of given that the boys should have some working knowledge of Trek. The girls... not so much.

In part, thanks to Trek, I learned that just because I was enthusiastic about something, not everybody was going to love it. For God's sake, I wore Spock ears to school for my Halloween outfit in 5th grade (I would go on to dress as Kirk for a high school drama party my senior year).


the League, circa 1986, wishes you to live long and prosper. Special tip 'o the hat to Jamie for finding and scanning this classic for her own post. And to Jason, for taking this picture a few decades back.

But I also understood pretty early on that love for Trek took many forms. I might like Trek the way I liked basketball and football, but not the way I loved X-Men or Batman at the time. But I saw that there were folks who really, really loved Trek.

We would attend comic conventions at the Holiday Inn down by the river (its that round tower, sort of by Picky's Pantry Chevron, Austinites. You know it.), and those would be held in conjunction with Trek cons. And those guys were intense. I think Jason saw more of it than I did (I was digging through back-issue bins, he was looking around knowing he could read anything I spent my money on), but I do recall seeing the guys in Star Fleet outfits and thinking that was just kooky. Let alone, where did one secure one of those get-ups?

Upon its release, we went to see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (the one in the 1980's with the whales) at the Arbor IV, back when that meant something. The Arbor had THX sound, and something resembling stadium-style seating. At the time, if you wanted to get the full cinematic experience, and didn't want yoru shoes to stick to the floor of Showplace 6, you talked Dad into taking you to The Arbor IV. And I want to say this, because nobody ever believes me but...

The audience STOOD for chunks of the movie. STOOD. That was how excited these folks were about their Shatner and Spock. There was applause, and shouting, and just a damn lot of love for what they were seeing on screen. When the harpoon bounced off the Klingon ship? Oh. My. God. Pandemonium.

Afterward, we dissected the movie with my dad at Taco Bell. That's how much I remember being jazzed about that experience. That was all, of course, before Star Trek V: The League Demands a Refund (which featured a fan dance from Nichelle Nichols about 20 years too late).

I've only been to one other movie where people freaked out like that, and it was seeing Pulp Fiction at the Hogg on UT's campus fall of 1994, prior to widespread theatrical release. People also stood up there. But I really understood how important Trek was to people at that moment, and it was pretty huge for me, too.

I wound up keeping gerbils for a while. I think I was more interested in the habitrail than the actual animals, but I did wind up naming one of them Leonard Nimoy (the other was named Richard Nixon. I don't know exactly why.).

Like a lot of other young guys watching Trek, I had a TV crush on Lt. Cmdr. Uhura. You can have your Nurse Chapel or your Ensign Rand. But I was all about a savvy communications officer in go-go boots. Because I think if I ran a star ship between 4th grade and college, that's how I'd have run it, too.

I don't want to overstate this, but I did grow up seeing Uhura on the bridge of the Enterprise, understood she was an officer, and that was sort of a social battle won for somebody, somewhere. I would be in college before I actually stopped to think about how odd that must have been in the 1960's to have a black woman on a prime time show appearing as a capable military officer. Sure, she wasn't part of Kirk's inner circle, but she was featured as much as any bridge members back in the day. And she would go on to be as important as anyone in the feature films (in certain trek media, she's an Admiral).


a sweet-ass ride

No sooner did kids our age have their hands on a camcorder than we were doing our own Trek spoofs. I still recall a video of Jason and Reed as the crew of the Starship Win-a-Prize. Reed's Captain Kirk was a little trigger happy, if I recall, and Jason's science officer kept being approached by our border collie, Misty. He worked her in. Exterior shots were Lego. The bridge AND outerspace looked curiosly like our living room.

I initially rejected The Next Generation as looking like somebody's living room zipping through space (I still hate the set design). Plus, it took a few episodes to have someone who looked like a high school principal running the ship. Eventually I settled down, got over the lack of Vulcans (I never, ever understood why they didn't have a Vulcan or three), and got on board with the show. But that first season was rough.

I followed the original series through "The Undiscovered Country" and into "Generations". But once Next Generation wound down and took over the movies, I just wasn't super-interested anymore. I'd only dipped in and out of Deep Space 9, occasionally watched Voyager, and never took to Enterprise. Bully for you folks who did, but I don't know really my Tuvok from my Archer.

As much as I loved Star Wars (until, circa, 2002, when I gave up), Star Trek's tendency to lean toward science fiction rather than fantasy appealed to a completely different side of me. It wasn't as flashy as droids and lightsabers, but it all seemed so possible. And even if it weren't peering into the future, it seemed to suggest ideas as problems for engineers to solve and diplomatic and naval strategy to ponder rather than just accepting that "it's The Force, go with it."

I don't agree with all of Roddenberry's vision of the future. The notion of an enlightened world, free from human avarice seems so far off, that's the hardest part of his fantasy to swallow, but I see why he wanted to present that vision. Without believing in that goal enough to put it forth as an option, how can you work towards it?

And he didn't always achieve his own vision. Trek, after all, was still basically (as I like to say) three dudes flying around space in their space corvette, getting into scrapes while the swinger of the group picked up chicks and his wacky pals sniped at each other. Roddenberry's vision of the future still featured three white dudes and a lot of helpless women in need of Kirk's tender ministrations.

But it did throw open the door for what came later in other series that had internalized those notions a bit better.

I think it's now closed, but the Hilton casino in Vegas had a whole wing devoted to this show that only made it on TV for three seasons. The Star Trek Experience was an amazing fan-boy's dream. The restaurant was built to look like the set of the bar from Deep Space 9, there were real props from the shows everywhere, including models of the ships. Klingons wandered about and folks in Starfleet uniforms. There was a ride with a narrative associated with it that started after they somehow faked beaming you aboard the Bridge of the Enterprise. Which... I still don't really know how they did it. I'm sure they heard "whoa!" a hundred times a day.

I was always a little sad Jason never saw it.

Anyhow, Trek has been with me for a long, long time. I am actually quite thrilled that Paramount is taking steps to make sure it might be with me for quite a lot longer, and with some version of the characters who I loved first and best. I don't see it as dishonoring Gene Roddenberry. I look at it as caretaking the vision of teh future Roddenberry first shared more than 40 years ago.

If Kirk's communicator could plant the idea of a cell phone in an enterprising engineer's head, then what else can we hope to see materialize? How long before they're beaming us up?

I have to admit, I was at Target last week and saw they were selling Star Trek toys. After wanting one for 20 years, I am now the proud owner of a Starfleet Communicator. If I can locate the Tri-Corder, my mission is complete.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there in Leaguer-Land.

I'll be spending Mother's Day this year with Judy, Jamie's mom, and will raise a glass to my own mom when they come to visit in a few weeks.

I've known my own mom for quite a few years, and in that time, I've had opportunity to observe her at work.


it is impossible for me to imagine the KareBear sitting this still unless she were asleep

As lucky as I am to have the KareBear for a mother, its difficult to underestimate how many other kids my mom has taken care of over the years. A constant of the Steans household was to see all our pals running around the house, being fed, spending the night, and having a second home at our house. I was probably in high school before I figured out not all moms did this (Peabo's mom, however, probably saw a doubling in the food bill in the years I grew up in Austin as I wasn't shy about wandering into their kitchen).

And as my mom has taught however many decades worth of kids, it wasn't uncommon for us to have some kid who was having a rough time of it hanging around the house in one shape or another. From the girls whose family lost their house in a tornado to me wandering downstairs in college and seeing a pool full of kids I didn't know were going to be there that day, the lady's heart knows no limits to size nor does it know boundaries. She genuinely loved those kids, and when I'd wander the hallways of her school when I'd come to visit, those kids who hadn't been in her room for a few years were still trying to talk to her in the hallway.

All that, and there was never any question whether she had time to be a den mother for my cub scout troop, was hauling me and my pals to basketball practice, hosting parties for my drama gang, whatever... She was always there.

I don't want to paint too much of a Beaver Cleaver picture. Like any family, we had our differences. But I can honestly say that those differences were always something easy for me to deal with, especially as I grew older and knew that those differences stemmed out of approach, not out of any lack of love.

As nuts as I was about Jamie, I don't know if it was because of how nuts I was about Jamie or because she liked Jamie all on her own, but Karebear has been nothing but supportive of Jamie and me in a million different ways. And I know she's very pleased to finally have a daughter instead of just two, big, smelly boys.


probably what the KareBear envisioned for herself when she had a family


What she wound up with

Since I graduated, she's retired, but that doesn't mean she isn't volunteering at her former school, teaching English to new residents, and helping out with my grandfather and the kids of family friends.

This spring Karebear is fulfilling a lifelong goal of journeying to Kenya on a mission trip with a church group. While its traveling far from home, and into an unknown situation, part of me thinks its pretty typical of my mom. She's going to go above and beyond to help people she doesn't or who she barely knows.

So, I salute thee, Karebear. Happy Mother's Day. Hope that bouquet showed up.

FYI: Comic Fodder No More

As an FYI, I am no longer contributing at Comic Fodder.

That's no political statement, I've just not had time to write about comics lately AND actually read them. Each CF post took around 3-4 hours, and finding that time in a week had become increasingly difficult, as well as feeling jazzed enough about some minor point of comic-minutia to get revved up to write on it in the manner needed.

In the end, I was writing more about comics than reading them. And that, Leaguers, is just wrong. I want to enjoy my comics, not look at them as a "to do" list.

So... part of why I returned to Comic Fodder was to side-bar my in-depth comic discussions which usually received no feedback, whatsoever, here at League of Melbotis. I would alert you guys... that's probably coming back in some shape or form. I probably won't be avoiding the topic, and without CF as a platform...

I'd like to thank Tpull (Travis Pullen) and Mac Slocum of the Fodder Network for being a great Publisher and Editor. And, of course, CF contributor Simon for having such great insight.

That is all.

I forgot.

In my previous posts, I completely forgot about Supergirl, starring Helen Slater. Whom I am now too old to say the things about Slater that I said when it was more age-appropriate and OK. Lets just say that as a younger person, i was fond of Helen Slater.

As penance... over the next week, I shall watch Supergirl. And you will read my review.

Slater showed up on Smallville a season or two ago. She's holding up just fine.

Worst Comic Movies of All Time

Ho-boy. Here we go.

I'm sticking with the same rules in regards to superhero comics adapted for the big screen. I also have to apologize for posting this a day late. I was working on it last night and became tired and opted for bed over an incoherent second half.


So...

The biggest challenge, except where otherwise noted, is that I haven't bothered to watch several of these again since I first bore witness to their malice. So some of these I barely remember at this point, except for a deep sense of melancholy when I try to recall my theatrical experience.

These are as bottom of the barrel as I can go and not somehow do an about face and grow to love the production for its awfulness. I've referred to the JLA TV pilot that never aired, and I kind of like how the only thing right about it is that someone thought to throw some cash around and hired Miguel Ferrer to play a version of Weather Wizard.

1) Spawn.
When discussing terrible movies a few days ago, Jason mentioned this particular gem, and I cannot disagree. I'm not sure the idea of Spawn in itself is bad, even if it does sound like a 14 year old's idea based on an inability to reconcile his love of death-metal album covers with wanting his creation to be heroic. The idea of turninga negative into a positive is one I can get behind, but...

in the comic and movie, Spawn is a rebelled agent of the devil. Rather than leading Beelzebub's forces on Earth, he uses his nightmarish powers, in a big ol' plot twist, for GOOD, fighting and hunting Satan's demons, who don't appear as metaphors, but as actual demons. I have to admit, once you actually show the face of THE Devil, you've sort of lost me. In fact, all of the "hell" sequences lost me, as they all looked like they'd been cooked up on an Amiga, circa 1993.

Aside from the premise, I'll be honest, all I remember about the movie is the following:
a) I was terribly embarrassed for Martin Sheen, who was, for some reason, in the movie
b) If I did not already have a deep disdain for John Leguizamo before, this movie sealed the deal
c) The FX were the sort of cheap CG one would usually see on Xena or other syndicated shows of the time.
d) I wanted to leave, but could not. Jamie had already decided to go hang out in the lobby, where she remained for the last 3rd of the movie, all the while I sat both despising the film and wondering when she'd come back so I could tell her we were leaving. A smarter person, she.

I've seen Spawn comics and the cartoon, and I admit, I don't get it. But aside from well rendered MacFarlane pencils, I don't know what I was ever supposed to get in the first place.

2. Judge Dredd
A cult-favorite in the US and, I understand, very popular in Mother england, this UK-based comic is about a utopian future in which "Judges" are police, judge, jury and executioner.

I'm not familiar with the comic to much of a degree, but I do know that it does not feature Rob "Makin' Copies" Schneider, or even David Spade.
The film was in trouble when Stallone decided this was his comeback vehicle, and hired some poor schlub out of nowhere to direct so he could basically dictate a great deal about the film, not actually have to direct, and not take ALL the blame if the movie tanked. Any relevance to the state of things in Thatcher's England that led to the Judge Dredd comic was missed entirely by the production, as we got, instead, to endure 2 hours of Stallone bellowing and moping.

I have no idea if it made money or not, but the movie received terrible critical review from everyone but my college-pal, Richard, who had seen it a day or two before and insisted I see this masterpiece right away.

The movie actually follows the Superman II/ Spidey 3 pattern of removing the costume for a big part of the movie and not letting them kick the crud out of thugs. Seeing someone lose their job or quit their job is NOT what people are generally paying to see at a super-hero movie. Especially the FIRST in a series.

The movie strips Judge Dredd of BEING Judge Dredd before the end of the first act.

Maybe the FX were okay. I have no idea. All I remember is being deeply unhappy walking out of the theater.


3. Batman and Robin
Tim Burton had abandoned the Bat-flicks after making two movies about a guy ostensibly like Batman, and who lived in Gotham City, etc... but who was pretty clearly NOT Batman (Batman can turn his head).

"Lost Boys" director Joel Schumacher took over the franchise and proceeded to chuck any goodwill Burton had built up with his loving, if off-kilter treatment of the franchise. It was a bold move in circa 1987 when Burton got Batman to disregard the old Adam West show (which most people identified as defining superheroes). Apparently squarely in the "this is stupid" camp, Schumacher must have thought he was helping when he dismissed Batman's motivation as childish and felt Batman was and always should be high camp, or not exist at all. A Batman for the 90's!

"Batman Forever" was the crummy third installment, which doesn't hold up well these days at all. It introduced a 20-something Chris O'Donnell as "The Boy Wonder", Robin, foisted Jim Carrey in tights upon us, and made an ass out of Tommy Lee Jones, who may have now seen Dark Knight and still be unaware he was playing Aaron Eckhardt's character.

"Batman and Robin" decided to expand the franchise and, developed in the late-90's "star power" era, added Alicia "I can't read" Silverstone as Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner Gordon-- no, she was suddenly Alfred's niece for some reason. Silverstone generally looks and delivers lines as if marginally lobotomized, but apparently enough people liked her rack in that Aerosmith video that we were supposed to think she was a super addition to the franchise.

Look, in the 1990's, I had it in for Silverstone. She kept getting work when she was clearly not talented, and I still find "Clueless" a vapid and stupid exercise from which I think you can trace a direct line from there to The #$%^ing Hills.

There was also the unfortunate casting of George Clooney, who gets ribbing for being in this movie, but... seriously...? Clooney? The guy just stands there and grins like a geek and tries to deliver the dilaog as if any of it (and of it at all) makes a lick of sense.

And in comparison to his cast-mates...

Uma Thurman demonstrated her inability to vamp, deliver a line or be sexy as villainess, Poison Ivy. Thurman CLEARLY believed she was in an Adam West episode, and may not have been wrong. But it doesn't mean she was as good as Vincent price as Egg Head.

The newest Bat-villain, Bane, supposedly the Dark Knight's equal in the comics, was reduced to a mindless drone in his screen debut. And, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger was given bot the role of Mr. Freeze, and an endless stream of quips and one-liners about ice. Most of which make no sense.

Luckily, the movie was both a financial bomb and the closest thing you can get to Hiroshima as far as critical reviews go. Its failure triggered the Bat-movie reboots under Chris Nolan.

Oddly, the movie is so mind-numbingly awful, I can't help but watch it when it comes on cable. From the "Gotham is a Fabulous Disco" set design, to the bat nipples, to the awful one liners, to the plot which makes just absolutely no sense, to the frequent toyetic costume changes and the endless amounts of money obviously poured into this trainwreck.

It is schadenfreude at its sweetest.

4) The Fantastic Four Movies

Did Fox want me to hate the FF?
A typical case of "the studio knows better what will work, rather than 40 years of success in your comic", the FF movie went deeply off the rails well before production began.

Oddly, these two train wrecks are movies one hears occasionally defended, and I can never imagine wanting to be the one whose critical thinking skills have failed them so completely, that somehow either FF film seems like a good idea.

The first failure was probably in hiring director Tim Story, who had done light comedies with Jimmy Fallon before taking on Marvel's second most precious comics commodity. Clearly, Story was much more into the idea of what sort of sight gags he could cook up around the FF's powers and physical irregularities than pounding out a solid story or paying any attention to what had made things work for 40 years. Ha ha... Invisible Girl has to get naked... Oh, good times.

Sure, both are kids movies, and the FF SHOULD be family friendly. But the FF comics have been kid and family friendly for decades without requiring the sound of a trombone coming in with a "wah-wah-waaaaaaah".

They managed to miscast, neuter and dethrone Doctor Doom. Not to mention change his background, abilities, motivation, etc... To absolutely no end.

FF2 is, amazingly, worse than FF1. At least FF1 had the charm inherent in the super-hero origin story. FF2 introduced the Silver Surfer, had the most obvious and embarrassing bachelor party scene of all time, needlessly employed Doom, and failed to give anyone in the FF anything to actually do except for stand around and stare at the Silver Surfer. Seriously, they don't actually DO anything in the entire movie but watch the other characters.

And, for comic geeks, the decision that Galactus was not a character, but a big, purple cloud... pretty lame, studio. Way to forget there's a whole act wherein the FF could have actually DONE something.

Word is that the cast figured out the studio wasn't too keen on the sequel when they hadn't already heard about a sequel within three weeks of the film's premier.

Possibly the most maddening thing is that FF1 came out so close to Pixar's "The Incredibles", a movie which demonstrated the spirit of what a family-centric superhero movie can be. It's a franchise I'd love to see get a second chance.

5) Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
The first Superman film had fantasy, magic and wonder going for it, as well as strong performances, an astronomical budget and a director who didn't think he was on the set of "Three's Company".

Sadly, Superman IV lacked all of these items, but did give us a "Jon Cryser is: Hiding Out"-era Jon Cryer, Mariel Hemingway and Mark Pillow as Nuclear Man.

The frustrating thing about the movie is that you can see that at one point, it was an ambitious script, but something happened along the way, and they made the movie they could with the money they had, and the lack of talent, etc... associated. While its easy to shrug off the premise of Superman trying to remove the world's nukes as stupid, its also the most immediate logical question to bring up about a nigh-unstoppable god-man who is supposedly here to protect us. Why wouldn't he make a pre-emptive move on everyone on Earth to keep us from atomizing ourselves?

Obviously a complicated question, but rather than just answer it, the movie goes off the rails, cloning Superman into this guy.



Nuclear Man's weakness... he loses his power if he's not in direct sunlight. IE: his greatest fear is a good shade tree.

The FX in the movie are sub-par in comparison to the earlier installments, poor Margot Kidder is looking like somebody's mom who doesn't want to be there (but is back after the contract dispute that led to all the Lana stuff in Superman III), and has to endure a scene in which she double-dates Superman and Clark with Mariel Hemingway. realizing you are going to see what you think you're about to see gives you that same feeling you used to get when you realized you hadn't studied for a test or that you forgot to file your taxes on time.

Jon Cryer attempts to channel, I guess, some surfer-dude character or something. I don't know if that was funny when the movie was released, but it just sort of makes one sad now. Sort of like when you accidentally watch Power Rangers.

And, God bless Chris Reeve, because the man is still Superman despite the various obastacles of budget, directing (the only other recognizable film in the director's repertoire are the Iron Eagle movies and the Rodney Dangerfield opus, "Ladybugs"), possibly drug-addled co-stars, and who knows what else.

I could have NOT included the movie but (a) its a failure that ended a franchise and did damage to a genre, (b) its sort of joyless and kind of unwatchable.

But, again, its seeing the big ideas that Superman could and should be addressing, and seeing the numb-skull-edry that overtakes those ideas and crams them into the mold of a standard "I must fight my equal" punchout scene.

Superman III also has its flaws, but... honestly, this film is somehow even more disappointing. People have just seen it less.

Honorable Mention

Superman III. Aside from Annette O'Toole, who has twice graced the Superman franchise with her foxiness, the movie is a mess. But it is also the driver for re-shaping Luthor as a corporate tycoon as seen in the comics from 1986 - 2006. And, sorry, I actually like the Clark v. Evil Superman fight. As a kid, i remember having a sort of revelatory, deep-gut reaction to that sequence. Plus, it features DRUNK, ANGRY SUPERMAN. And that is awesome.

The Phantom. Slam Evil! said the poster. But this low-budget picture was more about slamming me with cliches and an oddly-cast Treat Williams. Sadly, what I mostly remember about the film is Kristy Swanson in tan adventure pants. Everything else is a blur.

I do recall being very excited that this very pulpy looking movie was coming out, and then THAT is what they did with it. Hey, I LIKE Rocketeer and The Shadow. No, really. I own them on DVD. So I don't know what happened here.

The Punisher - Dolph Lundgren and Thomas Jane. Both are bad, but Lundgren's Punisher is epically bad. And I say that as someone who used to pay to see Steven Segal movies in the theater. It oddly features a lot of Louis Gosset Jr., Italian-American stereotypes, the Yakuza, bad lighting and Dolph Lundgren acting as if he's on qualudes for 90 minutes. Thomas Jane's version missed the whole part about not being real specific about which mobsters the Punisher was taking on and re-located everyone to some resort town the Florida Keys or something. Its hard to believe anyone would be that upset when everyone looks like they should be enjoying a drink with a little umbrella in it.

Captain America - the Tv movies and the 1990ish feature The 70's TV movies of Cap needlessly rewrite Cap's origin and sort of make him a walking gun for the cops. They're just... sort of half-assed, but do feature Cap as a van-owner. and that I can get behind. The 1990's movie gets the WWII and freezing bits right, but gets literally every other detail wrong, including the choreography of the action, any pacing whatsoever, and not casting Ned Beatty as a central figure to the movie. It all looks like the budget was probably roughly what I was making that year in the allowance dollars given to me by the folks.

GhostRider. I don't know if you could have made a compelling movie out of this comic franchise to begin with, but its tough to imagine me wanting to sit through that movie less than I wanted to finish watching this one.

Catwoman. Oh, God. Well, this is actually probably worse than anything above, but I'm not looking back now. I also didn't finish watching it. What you can say is that it created a job for someone at Warner Bros. whose responsibility it is not to accidentally damage anymore DC franchise items the way we saw with Catwoman. (Why do you think marvel is producing its own movies now?)

Elektra. It was like they sorta skimmed the Elektra comics, and decided that was too interesting, so they should go a different direction and make a sort of poorly paced and awkward movie. Couldn't finish this one, either.

Daredevil. Well, its unlikely anyone was really going to capture Frank Miller in his prime quite right for a movie, and sure enough... they failed. So, so many places where this didn't need to be as bad as it was. One day I really hope they try again with Daredevil because he should be a very movie or TV ready character. Just... not like that.



What I have not seen:

The Spirit (most recent or 1980's TV version)
TV movie of Dr. Strange
TV movie of Spider-Man from the 1970's
Corman's Fantastic Four

What I have seen:
SuperPup, which, to view it is to know madness...

Wolverine Goes to College

The University of North Texas website today. That's Wolverine and, I think, Penance (formerly "Speedball" of the New Warriors).

I seriously thought I had clicked on the wrong link for a full five seconds and newsarama or someone had changed their look...