movies on Tyler Knows Nothing

Wed, 13 May 2026 08:03:11 -0700

The greats of #animation. Studio #Ghibli. #Pixar before Disney bought them. #Disney before they sold themselves out. And #Laika. What sets Laika apart is their masterful artistry is practical stop motion. Wildwood comes later this year. I am giddy with anticipation. #movies youtu.be/POneS8h1j…

Sun, 03 May 2026 12:21:00 -0700

Something’s off about “Animal Farm”:

Angel Studios is run by Latter-Day Saints which is firmly Religious Right and their first big “hit” was the QANON favorite from 2023, “Sound of Freedom”. This “Animal Farm” adaptation bears little resemblance to Orwell’s classic book. #TheMoreYouKnow #movies

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 14:39:36 -0700

Watched: Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender 🍿 Utterly gorgeous. Packed with action set-pieces from beginning to end. The story is fascinating, but ultimately is both too rushed and leans too heavily on tropes. Ends up making it fan-service eye candy and little more. #movies #animation

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 13:35:03 -0700

Netflix Sets ‘Charlie vs. the Chocolate Factory’ Animated Feature for 2027:

Oh, lord no. Why not just faithfully adapt the book into a series? Because some dipshit thinks they know better, of course. Shades of JJ Abrams much? #netflix #movies #animation

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 15:12:19 -0700

When Brad Bird directs an animated feature, it’s going to be special. It looks to be the case with Netflix’s Ray Gunn coming this year. Described by Bird as a blend of 40’s noir and Buck Rogers, the early stills from the film look freaking amazing! #movies #animation www.avclub.com/ray-gunn-…

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 11:55:14 -0700

Watched: GOAT 🍿 SONY #Animation nailed it with the visuals and the game sequences are easy to follow and very dynamic. Where the film falls flat is in story structure. The gags aren’t funny, either, but fortunately there are few. Just a basic sports plot, and that’s about it. #movies #reviews

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 20:19:43 -0700

Watched: The Dreadful 🍿 Beautifully shot. Ultimately disappointing. Plays like a slow burn, but lacks a solid payoff, gives away the twist way too early, and doesn’t really earn its creepy aesthetic. Very lovely to look at, though. #movies #review

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:06:23 -0700

Watched: Return to Silent Hill 🍿Um… not great, all around. It could be because I haven’t played the games, but I’ve watched the earlier films and they were, at the very least, better from a film standpoint. I’d say don’t bother. #movies #silenthill #videogames

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:46:29 -0700

Sylvain Chomet’s ‘A Magnificent Life’: Animation More Real Than Reality:

The Triplets of Belleville is one of favorite films. I’m looking forward to this. It premiers on limited screens tomorrow. #animation #movies

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:45:33 -0700

I’m super hyped for this new entry into the burgeoning #animation market. #Dreamworks new film, coming September 2026, is titled #ForgottenIsland, and it looks and #SimpleMinds amazing “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” is clearly pivotal to the story. #movies youtu.be/a8RHqN93q…

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 18:41:15 -0700

Disney Drops ‘Moana’ Live-Action Official Trailer:

Oh FFS. Please stop. No more. And stop going to see these “movies”, people! If they tank at the box-office, then they might go back to making animated films instead of regurgitating films they already made. #film #movies #disney #liveactionremakes

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 14:02:21 -0700

Watched: TRON: Ares 🍿30 minutes into the film and I’m bored. Nothing new. Nothing interesting. Crappy dialog with painful delivery. Have a feeling I might not bother watching much more. #movies #reviews #moviereviews

Sat, 27 Sep 2025 09:58:19 -0700

#SatoshiKon is one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. His medium just happened to be #animation. #PerfectBlue. #TokyoGodfathers. #Paprika. #ParanoiaAgent. And, of course, the topic for this video, #MillenniumActress. Pancreatic cancer took him at age 46. youtu.be/1R1rOH4ws…

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:48:14 -0700

Oh, this is just fantastic. I can’t wait!! #SpinalTap The snake feeds upon itself!! #music #heavymetal www.youtube.com/watch

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 22:54:19 -0700

I don’t think much of #AI or expect our #capitalist overlords to do good with it, but it sure as hell can make some really funny shit 🤣 Check out what would make an amazing, if confusing, action flick. #movies #AIMovieTrailers #funny

The WORST Anime of ALL TIME - 10th Anniversary: The Complete List

Sat, 24 May 2025 14:04:20 -0700

Part of the payment I must make to Satan to save my soul from eternal damnation is to prepare a detailed listing of all anime that Geoff lists in his Mother’s Basement videos on YouTube. Just kidding. I do it because I love it and want to help peeps retain the font of knowledge that Geoff shares with us in his various videos. Today’s video is a comprehensive breakdown of the ten worst anime of all time. Yes, the worst of the worst or the animated equivalent of emotional torture.

NOTE: This is a list of anime series to AVOID. These shows are NOT like the Hottest Trash which you can watch because sometimes bad == good. So, please don’t watch these, unless you’re a sadist… or a masochist who wishes to inflict emotional pain on unsuspecting victims. Knowing, according to G.I. Joe, is half the battle. Be kind. Spare your mind.

Now for the list. I’m sorry:

Rent-A-Girlfriend or How to make your entire cast unlikeable
The Promised Neverland Season 2 which never happened and makes people really mad
Conception: How to make babies then use them to fight wars
Seven Deadly Sins … “Really, I blow away mountains for breakfast.” - a mountain. Oof.
My Life as Inukai-san’s Dog which is about… um, “animal husbandry” but borderline illegal?
The Happy Science Collection: Religious cults, brainwashing, & propaganda for children!
The Irresponsible Galaxy Tylor. I’ve never been more ashamed, and now consider it misspelled.
Hand Shakers or Motion Sickness: The Animation, now with more sexual perversion!

For the coup de gras Geoff combines the two worst into a Mega Worst, both of which just happen to be Crunchyroll Originals:

2 (and 1). Ex-Arm - All the Don’ts and None of the Do’s of Anime & Visual Storytelling 1 (and 2). Gibiate - Mind control agitprop films for insane people being held at CIA blacksites

Once again I feel the need to remind you of the psychological damage that you can incur from viewings of the above listed media. Please take this list as a warning and keep this guide handy when reviewing new series to add to your watchlist in order to avoid accidental damage to the psyches of you or those you care for.

For additional details, please refer to the original source: www.youtube.com/watch

Thu, 22 May 2025 20:47:18 -0700

I love Mobile Police #Patlabor, an #anime #mecha series unlike any other. It’s been around for a very long time and will be returning next year with Patlabor EZY. If you are new to Patlabor, check out STEVEM’s fantastic retrospective. #animation #TV #movies #scifi #mamoruoshii www.youtube.com/watch

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 09:48:39 -0700

I adore the Wachowskis 2008 cinematic masterpiece Speed Racer, but it’s taken almost two decades for most of the world to recognize its brilliance. Patrick (H) Willems latest video explains why. Also, just watch it, for the first time or again. #movies #speedracer #anime www.youtube.com/watch

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 16:03:41 -0700

I’ve been hearing very good things about Ryan Coogler’s new R-Rated film, Sinners. You can see the ratings above (or below), got an A on CinemaScore, and raked in well over $100 million globally in its opening weekend. I’m hyped! #movies #sinners #horror www.wired.com/story/sin…

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 20:53:44 -0700

Too late. Don’t care. #marvel #jumpingtheshark #movies www.slashfilm.com/1841490/m…

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 17:54:35 -0700

Yeah. It’s not that great, TBH. #Firefox, the movie and not the browser, is a fair film, but it’s not worth going out of your way to see it. I saw it in the theater when it was released and thought it was schmaltzy fun. YMMV. #film #movies www.slashfilm.com/1832419/c…

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 15:07:06 -0700

If you’ve never seen #Floor796, prepare to be amazed. A single artist, in their free time, has been creating an enormous, tile-based animated #GIF filled with all manner of characters from all manner of media. They’ve just added a new tile today. #animation #art #creatives #ZeroAI floor796.com

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 20:00:11 -0700

#BradBird is back directing #animation with his original script “Ray Gunn” which is already in production. Animation will be handled by #Cinesite and #Skydance Animation Madrid and is a #scifi #noir about the last human detective. #movies www.cartoonbrew.com/feature-f…

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 17:37:38 -0700

I am all there for this. You’ll understand when you watch this one minute teaser. They clearly knew they had to nail this 110% on first reveal, and I believe they did. #movies #nakedgun #movietrailers www.youtube.com/watch

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 16:53:58 -0700

If you are tempted to watch Gerard Butler’s 2017 disaster movie disaster “Geostorm” because it’s trending on #Netflix, don’t. My wife put it on our watchlist not knowing that it has an 18% #RottenTomatoes score. It’s terrible, like 2020’s “Greenland”. #movies www.slashfilm.com/1825458/g…

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 16:49:35 -0700

I’m not sure the downside indicated is an actual downside. From all indications, the #LiveAction How To Train Your Dragon is fantastic, bucking the trend of such remakes. I just hope the flying scenes evoke the same emotions as the originals. #movies #animation #httyd www.slashfilm.com/1825943/h…

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 21:48:29 -0700

Wow. This really sucks. Val Kilmer has died at the age of 65 of pneumonia. There’s not much more, but it’s terrible. #hollywood #acting #movies #RIP www.reuters.com/world/us/…

Mon, 31 Mar 2025 16:49:45 -0700

Good news, everyone! Okay, just #animation lovers, but it’s still great news! Warner Bros. CEO Zaslav vaulted Coyote VS. ACME for tax reasons, but it’s now being released by Ketchup, makers of The Day The Earth Blew Up. It’s official, but we don’t have a date yet. #movies www.slashfilm.com/1823161/c…

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 18:46:46 -0700

1999’s Mystery Men was a box office bomb that deserved much better, but does enjoy strong cult status. I have it on Blu-Ray and adore it. I’d always wondered what happened to the Herkimer Battle Jitney. Check the first comment. #movies #MysteryMen #superheroes www.youtube.com/watch

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 21:53:53 -0700

LA is my hometown. The #Capitalism segment of #Hollywood is dwarfed by the creatives who make the media we love. They should be paid and not replaced by #AI. Now watch Mikey’s video about the sign. #film #TV #animation #music www.youtube.com/watch

Sat, 15 Mar 2025 13:56:36 -0700

I love the #Animation work that comes out of #Gobelins, and this has to be one of my new faves! #anime #shortfilm #film #YouTube #art www.youtube.com/watch

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 13:13:45 -0700

I’m cautiously optimistic. #Disney has clearly learned lessons as the #LiveAction Lilo & Stitch trailer hits a lot of recognizable beats from the source, but they’ve also made a lot of changes. I fear too much, but we’ll see. #animation #movies www.youtube.com/watch

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 11:56:47 -0700

The wife and I spent most of the conveniently placed dialogue-free sections eagerly speculating on what was going on in this film and were pleasantly surprised when we were mostly wrong. Very well written, directed, and acted with excellent visual work. #movies #thegorge #AppleTV #scifi

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 19:52:50 -0700

A review for the movie Bloat (2025). Conclusion: Don’t bother. #film #review #horror

Bloat... a film review

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 19:05:27 -0700

🍿 Bloat (2025)

Tedious. Annoying. Unless you have some unnatural fondness for the very particular sub-sub-genre of horror known as “screen life”, which itself is a derivative of the mostly frustrating found footage sub-genre, then you will not like this film. I could barely get through ten minutes.

Conclusion: Don’t bother.

Editor’s Note: I’ve decided this is not the format for me, so I’m reposting this in my preferred format. It’s the exact same text, so if you’ve read this, you don’t need to see the other. It’s literally just a different format. -TKN

Tue, 04 Mar 2025 14:06:30 -0700

I can’t agree with @kotaku.com about most on this list. #Disney #liveaction adaptations are mostly wretched & soulless, aside from #2 The Jungle Book and #1 Pete’s Dragon, both from 2016. Lilo & Stitch might get on my list, though. #film kotaku.com/disney-li…

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 21:51:42 -0700

Like sociopaths testing the boundaries of society (sound familiar?), #streaming services keep raising rates to see how far they can stretch consumers, and they’re doing it again. We’re starting to get tired of this, and considering dropping a few. #capitalism #pricegouging www.theverge.com/23901586/…

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 17:30:49 -0700

Denis Kitchen should be mentioned alongside #comicbook avant-garde guerrillas like Crumb, Spiegelman, and Eisner. He created the #CBLDF and published #Gay Comix. He fought for the artistic expression of the oppressed and marginalized. Now a #documentary is on the way. boingboing.net/2025/02/2…

Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:03:19 -0700

Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie will be hitting theaters on April 25th. Check out the trailer. It looks great! #movies #comedy #documentary www.youtube.com/watch

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:45:33 -0700

In #entertainment news, #Amazon now has complete creative control over the James Bond property. Amazon bought MGM & wanted to create a James Bond Cinematic Universe, and Barbara Broccoli hated it. She lost. #enshittification #movies #007 www.polygon.com/news/5263…

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:04:22 -0700

Watched “Don’t Let Go” on Netflix this weekend starring David Oyelowo and Storm Reid and directed by Jacob Aaron Estes and am shocked to discover that it was made for $5M. Amazing film and well worth your time. #film #movies #netflix #scifi www.slashfilm.com/1793113/s…

Tue, 04 Feb 2025 08:54:09 -0700

The first #trailer for #Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps has dropped. Previous outings have run the gamut from disastrous to not terrible. Very kitschy as it jumps back to the era of the first #comics. We’ll see, I guess. #movies www.youtube.com/watch

Sun, 02 Feb 2025 19:30:15 -0700

Without question, a well directed and shot film with solid performances by most of the cast, they should have leaned hard on the “psychological horror” instead of just “horror”. I may be jaded, but I didn’t find it frightening. Dafoe is always a pleasure, though. #film #movies #reviews

Thu, 23 Jan 2025 19:04:55 -0700

#NowWatching @ Nothing Manor: Welcome to The Darkness (2023). A #documentary about the bombastic arena rock band, their fall from grace, and how they started to climb back up despite serious challenges. #movies #TheDarkness #music www.youtube.com/watch

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 16:38:14 -0700

Mickey 17 is my most anticipated #scifi movie in some time, and the latest trailer only confirms that I am right to be excited for Bong Joon Ho’s (The Host, Mother, Snowpiercer, Parasite) latest future masterpiece. #movies www.youtube.com/watch

Things you can do instead of watching America being peacefully handed over to a criminal - Inauguration Special 2025

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 11:59:15 -0700

Don’t watch the news today since all they’ll be talking about is how great and normal it is to just hand an entire country over to a criminal in the name of a democracy that’s been utterly broken and shreaded. If that leaves you unsure of what to do instead, here are some suggestions:

Listen to some music. I’ve been sharing my album plays, and here’s a list of them that I refresh a few times a week. tavexocor.shop/nothing-m…
Go for a walk
Spend time with friends
Play a game like a board game, video games, or get into table-top role-playing games (TTRPG), or even just a few dozen rounds of poker
Read a book like Isaac Asimov’s Robot series, many of which are murder mysteries. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robo…
Nap in a patch of sunlight or next to a warming fire with your kids and/or pets
Bake something like biscuits or pie or some nice, big potatoes and stuff them with cheese, bacon, sour cream, and chives, or whatever you like
Help out at your local homeless shelter or donate some old clothes to families in need
If you can afford it, slap a few hundred bucks on a gift card, go to that store, and pay for everyone until it runs out
Stop and smell some roses
Watch a movie or three like The Wild Robot (2024 on Apple TV, Google Play, Amazon Prime and more)
Write something nice on a pad of paper about nice and/or hopeful for yourself or someone you like
Get out an old computer and install Linux Mint and engage in some joyful technological discovery. linuxmint.com
Go out on a thrift shop crawl in your local area and buy some old things to give them a new home

And if you must watch TV, then allow me to suggest one of the single most joyful and affirming shows ever made;l Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil. You will not regret it. Well, you’ll regret having trouble eating the food Phil eats, unless you live in one of the cities he’s covered.

Feel free to submit your own lists of things to do other than watch the news today. #animation #comics #manga #film #movies #linux #music #retrocomputing #humanrights #civilrights #scifi #tech #videogames #writing

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 11:44:22 -0700

In 2019 Gint Zilbalodis released his film “Away” which he animated and produced by himself. His new film “Flow” just won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature, though this time he did have a small team, and beating heavyweights “Inside Out 2” and “The Wild Robot”. #animation #movies www.cartoonbrew.com/awards/go…

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 20:08:25 -0700

I’m quite sad that 2011’s #animated ‘The Adventures of #Tintin’ directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Peter Jackson & Kathleen Kennedy hasn’t gotten a sequel yet. It’s a great #movie and did well at the global box office. Now Tintin and Popeye will soon be entering the public domain. www.polygon.com/news/5022…

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 09:23:06 -0700

Found this in my #YouTube recommendations this #Christmas morning :) The #Lancia #Delta #Integrale is my all-time favorite rally car and this is some stunning #animation in Unreal Engine 5 #UE5 #shorts #film www.youtube.com/watch

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 22:17:59 -0700

I love #animation and I love #writing. I watch the former, but I built a career on the latter, then it died when the #pandemic swallowed the world. I have #LongCovid and it’s major features are brain fog, tinnitus, and exhaustion. I just can’t focus, so I think I have some idea about what Hayao Miyazaki has been going through. How do we live? Good question. Watch this. www.youtube.com/watch

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 15:08:17 -0700

www.youtube.com/watch As reported on #Animation World Network, #Netflix has dropped a teaser for Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight, the third CG #film from Alain Chabat and the first to be localized for English audiences. I read Goscinny & Uderzo books as a child in the 70’s and have loved them ever since. Each successive film has looked better and better, and it’s clear they’re leaning more into the comic roots of the tales of one village of Gauls against the Roman Empire. #movies

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 13:03:34 -0700

Um… WOW!? Looney Tunes haven’t gotten a lot of love in… decades? Just take in the teaser for Ketchup Entertainment’s new #animation outing, The Day the Earth Blew Up starring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. The teaser is utterly hilarious, and it’s traditional 2D animation and hits theaters February 28th, 2025. #cartoons #movies www.youtube.com/watch

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 12:24:17 -0700

STEVEM’s profile of Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg art film, one in a series of videos about the legendary director of beloved #anime #movies like Patlabor and Patlabor 2, Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2, and The Sky Crawlers, is a deep dive into a film that almost wasn’t made. It’s an extraordinary experience and a must see for any #animation lover. www.youtube.com/watch

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 20:53:05 -0700

Oh my… I’m not sure nightmare fuel human teeth Sonic the Hedgehog will ever go away, and it seems that Paramount is comfortable with that. As ugly holiday sweaters go, this is decidedly atrocious and will give your children under 10 PTSD. #sonicthehedgehog #movies #videogames www.polygon.com/movies/49…

Tue, 10 Dec 2024 22:55:34 -0700

www.polygon.com/animation… #animation #movies I’ve recently watched Away for the first time and was blown away. I nearly passed out when I found out it was made by one person. Now director Gints Zilbalodis' new film Flow is in theaters now and people appear to be loving it. If you haven’t seen Away yet, you can watch it now for free on Tubi, with ads of course. But you should buy the Blu-Ray or rent it, as it’s better without interruptions.

Mon, 09 Dec 2024 17:59:03 -0700

I’ve watched the vast majority of the fifty nine films on this list of the best anime films of all time according to /Film. How about you? I won’t bother critically analyzing the list. It seems accurate enough. #animation #anime #movies www.slashfilm.com/1202644/t…

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 17:59:48 -0700

When I first saw the headline, I was confused about what #film they could be teasing (click-baiting?), but of course it’s 2002’s Equilibrium. I have this in my DVD library and have watched it at least a dozen times. It’s like a mashup of concepts from Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World blended with a unique take on kung fu with guns. It’s well worth a watch, if you haven’t seen it already. #scifi #movies #gunkata www.slashfilm.com/1718512/c…

Sat, 07 Dec 2024 16:02:49 -0700

I’ve been a #Trekkie since I was a kid growing up in the 70’s and I’ve watched everything in the #StarTrek universe of media. I wasn’t so hot on #Picard, but I definitely did NOT like #Discovery, and I have a feeling I won’t like #Section31, either. Some of the trailer looks great, but a lot doesn’t. I guess we’ll just have to see when it drops on Paramount+ January 24th. Yes, direct-to-streaming. Feh. #scifi #movies www.youtube.com/watch

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:44:46 -0700

Well, well, well. The first “Special Teaser #Trailer” for Lupin the IIIrd: The Movie penned by mangaka Monkey Punch dropped a couple days ago and it’s stunning. And, if my eyes do not deceive me, all hand-drawn traditional #animation and directed by Takeshi Koike (REDLINE, great film). A fine, fine return to its original form that I look forward to taking in next year. #film #movies #LupinThe3rd #anime #2025 youtu.be/KopjWLIz5…

How J.J. Abrams broke Star Trek

Sun, 24 Dec 2023 16:32:18 -0700

Star Trek: The Next Generation 30th Anniversary Print by Dusty Abell, Copyright © 2017, Roddenberry Entertainment Inc. Reprinted with permission. All Rights Reserved. Dusty Abell is a comic artist who has pencilled countless comic books, is an illustrator, and has been involved in the animation industry as a character designer since 2000. He has worked on productions such as Batman: Return of the Caped Crusader, Batman vs. Two-Face, Young Justice, Mike Tyson Mysteries, King of the Hill, The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe for Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, and many, many others.

The first Star Trek television show, known colloquially as The Original Series, ran from 1966 to 1969. The series, produced by Paramount Television and both commissioned by and broadcast on NBC, had its moments with episodes that broke critical new ground, like the first inter-racial kisses in Season 1’s introduction to Khan Noonien-Singh, “Space Seed,” and the more frequently cited kiss between Kirk and Uhura in Season 3 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.”

Then there were other episodes that kicked down granny’s door, broke her fine china, and peed in the foyer. Some common examples are from the third season, the premier called “Spock’s Brain,” and two weird “ensemble antagonist” episodes, a gaggle of space hippies in “The Way to Eden” described by Grace Lee Whitney (Ensign Rand) as a “clinker” and a throng of amnesiac tweens mind-controlled by a used car salesman generously blended with the ghost of a megachurch preacher in “And the Children Shall Lead”.

Series creator, Gene Roddenberry, clearly had luck on his side. NBC paid to have a pilot made and didn’t like it, but made the unusual decision to commission a second, which would become the Star Trek we know today. That luck, and an “organic” fan write-in campaign, would get them through a cancellation threat in the middle of the second season, but a second “organic” campaign would fail, and Star Trek was cancelled during the third season.

Star Trek however would go on to become quite popular in syndication, something I can directly attest to as I was a young lad in the 70’s. The intense popularity would prompt Roddenberry to team up with Filmation to create an animated series that ran on Saturday morning for twenty-two episodes over two seasons in 1973 and 1974. Later, the animated series that was broadcast also as Star Trek would become known as Star Trek: The Animated Series, and would represent the unofficial fourth and fifth seasons of The Original Series, at least according to the most devoted Trekkers/Trekkies.

It wouldn't be until 1979 that The Motion Picture would propel Star Trek from the syndication juggernaut it had become into an honest-to-goodness, multi-format franchise.

Let’s slow our roll a bit, my peeps. If I were to detail the development and production of ST:TOS, this article would take you a few hours to read. Instead, I’ve outlined a rough sketch of events sufficient for you to have context. If you’d like to know more about the history of Star Trek, check out the Wikipedia pages where there is an embarrassment of content, including entire pages for each episode of every series. At the very least, peruse the pages for The Original Series and The Animated Series, as those tales are fascinating. -Ed.

Star Trek - Wikipedia
Star Trek is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous…en.wikipedia.org

The adventure begins… again

Star Trek: The Motion Picture managed mixed reactions from fans and critics alike, often noting that it lacked in traditional action set pieces and contained far too many special effects shots, a concept that seems alien in 2022. It turns out that the film was based on an episode of a cancelled Star Trek: Phase II series expanded into a feature film, which might explain why there are many long, experiential sequences that pad the run-time. It’s difficult to get two hours of story out of a teleplay meant to fit into a one-hour time slot. Despite this, fan interest was quite strong. The film made enough at the box office to warrant a sequel, and that turned out to be just what the struggling franchise needed. What came next would become one of the most beloved films of all time, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

That simple twist of fate which brought together the right people at the right time to create something that astonished and delighted fans of the original series would form the new foundation of an epic theatrical run and almost enough energy to spin Star Trek into four new TV series. Each series would be less popular than the last with TNG and DS9 battling for most beloved, but only TNG’s crew shifted to cinematic releases, bowing with 1994’s Star Trek: Generations.

NOTE: We Trek fans love our acronyms. For the remainder of this article I will be referring to each series by its acronym. The general rule of thumb, if you’d not noticed yet, is ST for Star Trek followed by a colon, then an acronym from the series title, like so: Star Trek: The Next Generation (ST:TNG), Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (ST:DS9), Star Trek: Voyager (ST:VOY), and Star Trek: Enterprise, which didn’t get a catchy acronym that would stick. As such, the original series would be TOS or ST:TOS and the animated one, TAS or ST:TAS. In context, you drop the ST: to leave the remaining unique identifier. -Ed.

Paramount weren’t just twiddling their thumbs following the end of TAS, as they would release four theatrical films over the next seven years, 1979’s Star Trek: The Movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 1982, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in 1984, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in 1986. The first four films primarily focused on the TOS cast, but also started roughly sketching out the Trek universe, establishing many of the rules, the foundations of the United Federation of Planets, and relationships between the races, both complementary and contentious. You know, world building.

Energized by the popularity of ST:TOS in syndication and the first four feature films, Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home proving to be box-office blockbusters, Paramount began to develop a new television series that would become Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unhappy with the offers from ABC, CBS, and NBC and passing on an anemic offer from the newly minted FOX network, Paramount instead opted to retain full control, offering Star Trek: The Next Generation to independent stations under a barter syndication contract known as First-Run Syndication.

An explanation of Barter Syndication excerpted from the TNG Wikipedia entry: The stations sold five minutes of commercial time to local advertisers and Paramount sold the remaining seven minutes to national advertisers. Stations had to commit to purchasing reruns in the future, and only those that aired the new show could purchase the popular reruns of the Original Series.

For the new show, the TNG production team developed a more refined version of the episodic format established by TOS, where episodes would show a crew working together to solve problems through the lens of current events and cultural sentiment of the time, many of the themes being universally familiar. Far more than a mere monster-of-the-week format, Roddenberry wanted to create a universe where interpersonal conflict was a thing of the past, establishing in the production bible that crew mates weren’t guided by greed, lust, or power, opting instead for a more congenial fellowship.

The first season didn’t go well. Many of the writers from TOS were producing scripts that didn’t fit into Gene’s ideals and, as a result, Roddenberry reportedly “rewrote” the first fifteen episodes of the first season so they would adhere to his rules. Critics were unimpressed. DVD Journal’s Mark Bourne said at the time, “A typical episode relied on trite plot points, clumsy allegories, dry and stilted dialogue, or characterization that was taking too long to feel relaxed and natural." Patrick Stewart’s acting was applauded, however, and a number of key serial story arcs would be introduced, as well as some of the series’ most iconic recurring characters such as the god-like Q and Data’s evil twin brother, Lore.

“A typical episode relied on trite plot points, clumsy allegories, dry and stilted dialogue, or characterization that was taking too long to feel relaxed and natural.”

Following a debut season that would have seen a lesser property cancelled, TNG would go on to become one of the most influential television shows of all time and establish the tone and values for the next two decades of Trek.

From 1987’s launch of TNG until the premature cancellation of Enterprise in 2005 Star Trek was kind of a big deal. Some Trek luminaries regularly graced the pages of gossip rags, People, TV Guide, and other media outlets of the time, filled with glitzy paparazzi photos and talk about coming episodes. TNG had transitioned to feature films rather seamlessly with First Contact being the block buster it was and the hype around the new Trek for a new millennium.

2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis, the fourth film in the TNG run, didn’t do well, however, and the franchise would go mostly dormant for another seven years before J.J. Abrams 2009 Star Trek introduced a new take on the characters from TOS. Not only did “JJ” (I’m not typing those periods every time, people) bring a whole new style and tone to the franchise, but would create a new alternate future-history with the so-called Kelvin Timeline.

This radical departure from established canon had two significant effects. One, clearly unhappy with the retro-future chic of i, JJ dragged NCC-1701 “Enterprise” far, far, FAR into the future, one of the principle hallmarks of the reboot. This also had an unintended effect. When Paramount was seeking to reinvigorate the Trek TV franchise for their new streaming platform in partnership with CBS (now Paramount+) they leaned into the esthetic that JJ brought with the films, kickstarting the multi-season debacle that is Discovery, but I’ll get to that soon enough. Two, it kicked the original canon to the curb in favor of a more bombastic, action-oriented approach helmed by a collection of actors portraying, albeit excellently, caricatures of the beloved characters they were reprising, while lacking much of the nuance and “humanity” that Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhura et al. brought to the table through all of the films.

JJ’s 2009 Star Trek would use the Trek wireframe, but fill it with action set pieces and coded witty banter designed to stereotype the characters to whom they were supposedly paying homage. American audiences ate it up like so much candy and, as it is in today’s Hollywood, two more films were made, neither of which were very good. Certainly gorgeous and packed to the gills with action set pieces, but still lacking any of the true soul of Star Trek.

So, what IS Star Trek?

Well, one thing Trek is not is any one thing. I’m not great with philosophy. To make this easier on me, watch this fantastic video from Wisecrack, a YouTube channel that discusses all manner of things through the lens of philosophy.

Sorry to give you homework, but this piece is already going to cost you 20 minutes. Besides, how terrible is a nice video interlude, really.

The one thing that Jared (you should watch the video, seriously) glossed over was the fact that no one ideology rules anything. Even if the Borg were to exist, they would not be able to create an entirely homogeneous universe from end to end. In canon, the “Q” would likely stop them, as we “lower” beings, at the very least, provide the Q some modicum of entertainment, while recognizing that change in inevitable.

Take the Borg Queen as an example. She is, in a very real sense, a singular force who has her own wishes and desires and she obsesses over them to the point of her own destruction, as we see in Star Trek: First Contact. She presented as an avatar of absolute dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, an individual who, through a force and terror structure handed down to him by his progenitors, decides the fate of every single soul living within the borders of “his” country.

And yet, if this was the root of what makes Star Trek, then the Borg would be the only antagonist to face the Enterprise crew, backed by the ideals of The Federation of Planets and its all-encompassing Prime Directive. No, Star Trek is so, so much more, as through 700+ episodes of TV and a bevy of feature-length films (minus JJ’s works) we see depictions of just about every ideological stance humans have invented as seen through it’s own lens; humanism.

Trek, then, imagines an egalitarian future that is not free of crime and sorrow and violence, but one that responds to those things with restraint and understanding and, as necessary, force. Does Star Trek represent a true utopia? Of course not. As with the Borg, it’s simply not possible. Living beings, regardless of how well we might be able to work together, will always have differences, and from that will spring all manner of conflict, and we all know what happens when there’s conflict. Unresolved conflict eventually leads to violence. Always…

But there’s more…

Trek isn’t just a platform for developing thesis around philosophy. There are more esoteric aspects of the functional aspects of how Pre-Abrams Trek was produced. The easiest way to illustrate that is with a bullet list:

Tolerance — the bridge crew in TOS included a Russian… DURING THE COLD WAR. The aforementioned black+white kiss happened on TOS. In all things, the crews of Trek are tolerant until someone’s rights are being abused, at which point they tend to break the rules to make it as right as possible.
Empathy — the protagonists of Trek feel bad for others who are being hurt, but retain their human flaws. TOS Kirk wished for the death of the Klingon race after one Klingon killed his son, but he would later fight tooth and nail to save them. When one of the crew is taken over by a malevolent force, something that happens frequently, they don’t judge the individual for something they could not control. When they get a distress call, they rush to help. Caring for others comes first.
Logic — paramount to Vulcan culture is the suppression of their decidedly hyper violent emotional aspects to lean into logic, as cold and impersonal as it is. And yet, that doesn’t override the egalitarian humanism. It complements it. Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer had foils in the form of their bridge crews, each of which challenged their initial impulses with alternative views of the same events occurring in each episode. These captains would then distill their collective brain power into a string of decisions that would result in a desired outcome, typically one that would save or, at the very least, improve the lives of the people determined to be in need.
Technological Egalitarianism — not necessarily ideological in nature, the technology and science presented throughout the Trek universe, up until JJ Abrams took the helm, was an operational expression of critical thinking. Within the rules of Trek, the crews would work together to figure out a problem, determine the best course of action to correct it, and implement a plan to achieve the desired goal. This would often require the use or manipulation of some technological aspect of the Trek universe, and Trek production teams would use real scientists to paint at least a somewhat accurate scientific solution based on as much reality as possible. There were, in almost no uncertain terms, any “magical” solutions that just worked without making some kind of sense. Some episodes slipped. Nobody’s perfect.
Individualism, not Socialism — Contrary to popular belief, a Trek future is not one of Socialism but of empowered, cooperative individuals enabled by an egalitarian collective understanding. This can be illustrated by the simple fact that, when faced with a crisis, Trek Captains break the rules to do the right thing and, while they pay the consequences, they are never diminished as an individual. We see this most consistently in Star Trek: Voyager where Captain Janeway no longer has a direct connection to The Federation. And yet, despite the vast gulf of space between Voyager and Earth, the crew struggles to maintain the values of the Prime Directive.* This shows the audience that individuals, not socialist constructs, are the ultimate arbiters of applications of their own power. There are rules, but smart people know that there can’t be enough rules to satisfy all issues, so some of them must be bent on occasion.

* Thanks for the inspiration, CameronHarwick.com

In a impossible nutshell, Trek is… complicated, and it’s fiction that merely illustrates an imagined future where equality is paramount, life is sacrosanct, power is moderated, self is recognized, and about a billion other truisms. And yet, one ideal rises above all others; humanism. I must call it humanism because I don’t know a word that describes the same thing as applied to multiple sentient alien species. Star Trek, as a whole, does its damnedest to make everyone matter.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Reboot…

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum - Wikipedia
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt…en.wikipedia.org

Much like the farcical Broadway show with a very similar name from 1962, JJ’s Star Trek is itself a farcical take on the original canon, starting with TOS and ending with Enterprise. “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” was inspired by ancient Roman farces and heavily flavored with vaudevillian antics.

While the musical does lean into social commentary and satire, JJ’s intended his Trek to be a reintroduction of the Trek Universe to newcomers, according to Abrams himself. A read through the Wikipedia entry for the 2009 film titled simply Star Trek is telling. The “Production” section is littered with casual Hollywood justifications for all of the changes made, and how JJ’s team just knew it would work to make the characters relatable and the story exciting.

Never mind that these characters, established over fifty-plus years of material, had already been established, deeply relatable, and I’ll be damned if Trek wasn’t already exciting.

Star Trek (film) - Wikipedia
Star Trek is a 2009 American science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci and Alex…en.wikipedia.org

So, canon be damned, JJ and Co. decided to effectively toss everything nuanced and substitute common, work-a-day Hollywood tropes.

I think it’s the dismissive insult of flippantly casting aside decades of work by hundreds of cast and crew to maintain canon spanning fifteen productions that bothers me the most. The universe of Star Trek is as rich, deep, and diverse as Tolkien’s Silmarillion, from which can spring an endless array of possible stories that would have thrilled and engaged moviegoers, but instead we were served an admittedly gorgeous extended episode of Miami Vice in Space packed stem to stern with eye-straining lens flares accompanying Michael Bay-inspired action set pieces. If, however, you watch it like watching a Star Wars movie, ironically or tragically the preferred franchise of JJ Abrams, it is a fun film.

The fun would end with Star Trek Into Darkness, though, as it would tackle rebooting the much beloved and revered character arc of one Khan Noonien Singh, utterly annihilating it in the process. Khan, now a white dude in the form of the otherwise brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch, is overwhelmingly unrecognizable, even when we learn his character’s true name and purpose. Nothing about Into Darkness resonates in any way, shape, or form with Star Trek: Wrath of Khan aside from the exceedingly clumsy tropes that were yanked from the original source material and turned into a “twist” at the end that again insults any and all fans with even passing knowledge of the landmark Trek film.

Star Trek Beyond, directed this time by serial Fast & Furious helmer Justin Lin, is on an entirely different level of tangent as it features one of the largest structures ever built by the Federation, Starbase Yorktown, an impossibly huge, transparent behemoth that was clearly [pun alert] unrealistic in light of the fact that this is supposed to have been constructed during James T. Kirk’s early years in the captain’s chair and therefore, prior to events in The Original Series.

And if all this wasn’t enough, the mood around Trek was already darkened by the passing of screen legend Leonard Nimoy (TOS Spock) and that actor Anton Yelchin (who played a delightful Pavel Chekov) had been killed in a tragic vehicle accident a month before the film’s release.

Despite positive critical and audience reviews, however, Beyond effectively bombed at the US box-office as it couldn’t hold up to pressure from Jason Bourne and Suicide Squad. It’s also quite likely that the decline in ticket sales was due to the existing fan base starting to have an increasingly bad taste in their mouths from the effects of JJ’s radical changes to canon. That sour taste would be the unwanted gift that just kept on giving as, a few years later, CBS and Paramount would start to spin up new streaming properties, starting with Discovery which would be the keystone to their line-up on the then shiny new CBS All Access, now re-branded as Paramount+.

J.J.’s Series of Unfortunate Events

Mirroring the excessively disastrous manner in which the blockbusting success of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight film trilogy would inform Warner’s DCEU with overly dark and brooding tones that weren’t appropriate for the IPs they were applied to, JJ’s Trek films and Kelvin timeline would inject a cancer throughout Paramount’s Trek productions, namely Discovery. Read this excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for the series:

The series begins around ten years before the events of Star Trek: The Original Series, when Commander Michael Burnham’s recklessness starts a war between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. She is court-martialed, demoted, and reassigned to the USS Discovery, which has a unique means of propulsion called the “Spore Drive”. After an adventure in the Mirror Universe, Discovery helps end the Klingon war. In the second season they investigate seven mysterious signals and a strange figure known as the “Red Angel”, and fight off a rogue artificial intelligence. This conflict ends with the Discovery traveling to the 32nd century, more than 900 years into their future.

The USS Discovery finds the Federation fragmented in the future, and investigates the cause of a cataclysmic event known as the “Burn” in the third season. Burnham is promoted to captain of Discovery at the end of the season, and in the fourth season the crew helps rebuild the Federation while facing a space anomaly that causes destruction across the galaxy.

As a life-long Trekkie, this reads like the fever dream of a nine year-old who watched a few episodes of TOS for the first time while playing with crayons while binging on Mountain Dew and Ho Ho’s. The thing that frustrates me the most however is the “Spore Drive”, a magical solution which, like the improbability-powered Heart of Gold from Douglas Adams’ satirical and hilarious Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy books, allows the titular Discovery to instantly jump anywhere, just with more accuracy and fewer fantastical, physics-defying side effects (like turning into couches or being made of yarn until improbability normalizes.) And how, in a time occurring before the events of TOS, do they manage this? Why, with magical, space-breathing giant tardigrades, of course.

I’m not kidding.

Yes, JJ. Magical space yeti bears. Seems legit.

In short, JJ’s ridiculously callous abandonment of the core values and world building established over 50 years of Star Trek canon on television, the big screen, books, comics, and video games transmogrified the franchise into a caricature of itself. Paramount clearly felt that the popularity of 2009’s Star Trek film meant that’s what people wanted to see for Trek’s future.

I honestly don’t want to talk about Picard, as much as it pains me to say so. It’s just an expensive disaster of a show that learned everything from JJ and finally had to end with a 3rd season that both delighted and horrified long-time fans. The following article gives you a good rundown of the issues.

Picard's Star Trek Death Was Completely Pointless
Star Trek: Picard killed off Jean-Luc in season 1, before a swift resurrection that had no bearing on season 2, will it…screenrant.com

So, what now?

The original title to this article was going to end with “…and how to fix it.” It seems, however, that I don’t need to offer any suggestions. Paramount seems to have gotten the message.

Star Trek: Lower Decks would kick off things in a very unexpected way in August of 2020, just as the Pandemic was kicking into first gear. As you can likely see, it’s animated, but it’s not for kids. It’s what is currently termed Adult Animation, as in Family Guy, Rick & Morty, and BoJack Horseman, to name a few, and yet it hews to canon and convention, if unconventionally. It’s well worth a watch.

If that wasn’t weird enough, October 2021 would see the premier of Star Trek: Prodigy, this time for a younger audience and getting Kate Mulgrew to voice Captain Kathryn Janeway, the character she played for seven seasons of VOY. It is a surprisingly well written premise that explores their part of the universe following the same rules as a regular Trek series from a very unique perspective. It’s wonderfully fulfilling for humans of any age.

Then, in a turn wholly unexpected, there came Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which has brought an all new take to TOS and TNG style story telling with their heads firmly in canon. In all honesty, I expected to be treated to something akin to Discovery for SNW, but my wife and I were shocked, I tell you. From the first moment, the series has honored almost everything I ever wanted in a new Trek series since Enterprise, all while delivering a fresh, new spin on the episodic formula.

And all without falling too far into the traps of JJ’s Kelvin-verse. Sure, the sets are phenomenal and appear far more advanced than TOS, but they’ve dialed out the magical clap-trap and the eye-searing lens flares to powerful and enjoyable effect.

I won’t spoil any more. Just watch it.

The obligatory summary

There’s really not a lot to say, but thanks to all of the people working on the productions of Lower Decks, Prodigy, and SNW. Your love of the Trek Universe honors the fans who have come to love Star Trek over the past half Century.

Additionally, I believe it’s important to deconstruct the things that break so we can understand why they break, or in this case, were broken.

That pretty much sums it up. Hope you enjoyed reading :)

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Hotel Transylvania: Transformania | Film Review

Mon, 31 Jan 2022 18:10:58 -0700

" “>

Despite the growing recognition in the West that animation is not a medium made expressly for children, there is an expansive industry that revolves around productions that aim specifically for that audience. Ahem… Disney? Heard of ‘em? There are a number of outfits that play in that space these days. Warner, Illumination, Pixar, DreamWorks, Universal, and Sony Pictures Animation, in no particular order, are a smattering. Each studio has their own “voice” but Sony’s Hotel Transylvania franchise is a series of films that speaks in its own voice, and that voice is Genndy Tartakovsky.

And yet, Tartakovsky’s participation in the fourth entry in the tetralogy is limited to writing the story, co-penning the script, and acting as an executive producer. Instead, the helm was handed off to co-directors Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska, who are both first timers in the director’s chair (that’s a big chair.) Tartakovsky wasn’t the only one to decline participation in this latest, and reportedly final, installment, either. Most notably, Adam Sandler was replaced by Brian Hull as the voice of Count Dracula and Kevin James’ Frankenstein was replaced by Brad Abrell. Trust me when I say that you won’t miss them. The replacements are almost exact matches, indicating that star power just isn’t necessary to support feature-length animation. All it does it foster bloated production costs.

Sony describes Hotel Transylvania: Transformania as follows:

When Van Helsing’s mysterious invention, the “Monsterfication Ray”, goes haywire, Drac and his monster pals are all transformed into humans, and Johnny becomes a monster. In their new mismatched bodies, Drac, stripped of his powers, and an exuberant Johnny, loving life as a monster, must team up and race across the globe to find a cure before it’s too late, and before they drive each other crazy. With help from Mavis and the hilariously human Drac Pack, the heat is on to find a way to switch themselves back before their transformations become permanent. [SOURCE: IMDB.com]

At its core, Hotel Transylvaniais both an homage to classic luminaries of the Golden Age of animated shorts like Wily Coyote, Tom & Jerry, Popeye the Sailorman, and even more contemporary adherents to classic animated hijinks like Roger Rabbit and Ed, Edd, & Eddy (a meta turducken, if you will) and entirely its own thing, something like Rush is to rock music or Ben Folds Five is to alternative.

Nuts & Bolts

As the fourth entry, HT4 is a solid evolution of the defined art style, but it doesn’t stray from the franchises established parameters. This is no Spider-Verse and yet the color palette is rich and bright, lighting and luminance effects are excellent, and the correct application of bokeh and the lens effects bring believable depth to most scenes. It’s clear, that Sony has been working hard to refine their process. That said, some of the textures don’t look great (the rock slide in the opening musical number looks like crap) which is a big oversight on such a high-visibility production.

Character designs, on the other hand, are peak franchise, hewing closely to the immutable nature of classic cartoon character design that said characters are iconic and must remain recognizable. They only change in service of a gag and always return to their pristine base form when the gag is complete. This is the same basic rule that defines all character designs from all cartoon where these icons always wear the same clothes, et al. Imagine Fred Flintstone wearing actual pants or Jessica Rabbit wearing something other than her signature red, sequined dress… oh. Well, not that, but you get the idea. Thanks, Disney Whitewashing Division…

The story telling is solid, if a bit on the basic side, something I’d expect of Illumination’s work. It’s not bad, but it’s also not sophisticated. The comedy revolves almost entirely around the physical gags which, in turn, defines the entire film. In a film that is more a buddy adventure flick, ala the far superior Emperor’s New Groove, then another entry in the HT canon it works to a degree, but not entirely. There’s little to no meta humor that pleases both adults and kids alike, depending on your depth of knowledge. It comes down to the gag, and that gag is always a physical comedy bit. The approach takes away from the core conceit; two people coming to terms with each other by walking in each others shoes.

Unexpected hair loss syndrome…

If anything jumps out at me it’s that the film feels claustrophobic. We start in Drac’s house, then the hotel, the plane, the provincial town, the bus, the jungle, and the cave, then back to the hotel. While the story is about Johnny and Drac and their journey towards acceptance of their differences, and spending time in each others shoes, it pulls back from the more expansive world-building as exemplified in the Tartakovsky-helmed entries. Since each scene needs to serve the setup for the next visual gag, any potential avenues for additional, foundational scope and scale is ditched in favor of setting up for the next gag.

And that’s where it lies; at the intersection of storytelling and spectacle, with the visuals winning over the written by a long shot. It’s not a terrible movie, to be sure, but you won’t derive much but the most deconstructed joy, the kind that makes a little kid roll around in the dirt with the giggles but generally doesn’t survive the transition to higher modes of cognition that come with age.

It should be a hit for years to come as a go-to for quiet toddler mommy hours worldwide.

Greenland (2020) | Film Review

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 13:00:00 -0700

" “>

Good GOD, what a pig. Sure, Gerard Butler was a staple in mid-budget action flicks, but this dumpster fire isn’t one of his better ones, and it’s not going to inject any enthusiasm into prospects for his ongoing career.

BUDGET: $35 million BOX OFFICE: $47.5 million (worldwide)

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Chris Sparling, this schlocky disaster flick wannabe already instills a sense of dread before you cue it up after seeing that the movie poster proudly proclaims the movie is from “the” producer of the John Wick franchise, The Town, and Clash of The Titans (that monster hit… get it.)

When was the last time you were excited to see the latest film from your favorite producer?

Look, I’ve tried to write a simple summary of the plot, but it doesn’t make any sense. Gerard Butler’s insipid delivery as structural engineer John Garrity fares as well as expected when joined by the phoned in crap from Morena Baccarin (wife Allison) and Scott Glenn (Allison’s father Dale) and the obligatory kid, played by Roger Dale Floyd. There’s nobody else of note in the film. I’m rather surprised that these three agreed to sign on, but such is the lack of quality in Hollywood these days.

The basic rundown is as follows: John and Allison are in a bad way, but it’s not made clear why. We also learn that a comet is going to just barely miss Earth, then some of it’s going to hit, then all of it’s going to hit. That’s when John gets a call from the government that tells him he’s been selected to survive if he can get his family to a nearby military base before the end of the day. A lot of stupid shenanigans ensue, they get separated, and they get back together, and they survive. The end.

Big whoop.

Simply put, it’s a waste of time. The pacing is acceptable, but there are a lot of story elements that just feel slapped on, like generic tropes strung together to approximate an actual story. There’s zero recognizable character development, especially for Gerard Butler’s role. He’s not developed as a real, feeling, engaging, desperate human. His life circumstances bring no stakes. He’s not redeemed in the end. He doesn’t learn any harsh lessons. He’s just an unadorned avatar. The same applies to Baccarin and Glenn’s characters.

Multiple planes in the sky are clearly copy-pasted. The fires in the neighborhoods are way too big. The compositing is sloppy. Shots throughout are amateurish. All of it lacks any real energy, something I’m pretty sure is necessary for a disaster film. Hell, I’d bet real money that the Greenland shots are stock.

The Takeaway: Don’t bother.

How Pixar killed traditional animation

Wed, 12 Apr 2017 00:56:38 -0700

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It's hard not to think of Pixar and, by extension Apple, as amazing American institutions built by the astonishing, guiding hand of the late Steve Jobs. Pixar, after all, has churned out a steady stream of box office smashes, with the occasional stumble. Yet, at the same time, Pixar has become a cancer that has infected the Western World's lauded history of traditional, hand-drawn animation like an invasive species. We are paying a very steep price for Pixar's success today, and for the foreseeable future.

There is no question that Steve Jobs was a visionary and reshaped our expectations of computers and technology. He and friend Wozniak almost single-handedly created the personal computer market in the mid-70's. However, by 1985 he was ousted from his own company because he didn't fit the standard corporate mold. Steve didn't rest, however. He created NeXT Computers and later, Pixar. Pixar had a megahit with Toy Story in 1995 and Jobs sold NeXT to Apple in 1997. In that same year, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as Interim CEO.

While Jobs was reshaping what we understand as personal technology, Pixar was hard at work creating a new kind of animation using 3D rendering technology it had invented. That, however, is where the two diverge. As Apple created an environment where other manufacturers would start to compete with Apple, Pixar was starting to carve out a niche that would eventually become the entire market, forcing all comers to migrate to 3D or fall behind.

It's hard to ignore a studio whose every release rakes in hundreds of millions worldwide, time after time, almost without fail. Even the films considered relative failures by critics made tons of money for Pixar and distributor, Disney. Spielberg, Katz, and Geffen's DreamWorks SKG was the first real studio practically formed to take Pixar head-on, and eventually it zeroed in on a number of critical hits, namely the popular Shrek franchise. Others would start to make their marks, as well, like Sony Animation, Blue Sky, and Universal. Even Disney started making 3D features in-house.

1995 saw the theatrical release of six traditionally animated films and Toy Story, the first feature length 3D animated film. Toy Story went head-to-head with Disney's Pocahontas and A Goofy Movie and Amblin's Balto. By 2012 Pixar pitted the Celtic-themed Brave against seven CG-based and three stop motion films.*

2011's Winnie The Pooh from Disney, was the last significant traditionally animated feature to be released in the US.

2015 saw the release of Nickelodeon's The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water which featured traditional, CG, and live-action sequences, so can't be counted as a traditional film. Feel free to poke around the lists yourself, though it's quite depressing. In fact, Japan is the only major media producer that predominantly uses traditional animation, though it is commonly blended with cost-saving CG backgrounds and other non-character elements. Most Japanese feature-film releases are also traditionally animated, and Japan's most applauded animation director, Hayao Miyazaki, only rarely applies the use of CG animation, and never to anything important.

So, the result has been the almost complete dissolution of Western traditional animation studios. Period. It's not really a matter of the efficiency of output, after all, Japan produces a literal fuckton of animation over four seasons each and every year. It seems like it's come down to mere one-upmanship, and that sucks for animators or anyone who wants to go into animation.

Traditional animation is an art form. It is based purely in art as a creative, visual outlet that springs from human hands and is viewed by human eyes. While 3D animation can, and often is, beautiful, it is far less organic in variance, creative and/or cultural diversity, and frequently devoid of emotional impact. That last bit is critical. Sure, a story can be strong, and when edited together well, with good voice acting, and a compelling soundtrack, a CG film can be emotionally engaging. They simply lack the additional tonal quality of analog.

Like vinyl records.

* NOTE: All films noted or referenced were released primarily in the US market.

Damon's The Great Wall isn't so bad

Wed, 22 Mar 2017 12:19:33 -0700

" “>

You know, if more Americans watched Chinese movies, they might understand films like The Great Wall better. I'm more of a Japanophile myself, but I watch a good number of Chinese epics. Netflix is loaded with them, and some of them are quite good.

The thing you need to understand about Chinese culture is that the ideal of working for the benefit of the whole has been around for a lot longer than Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution (communism, if you didn't learn about Mao in school). The other thing you need to understand is the Chinese love for tales of mythology. Chinese culture has been around for a very, very long time, so they've got a lot of them.

Now, before we get to the idea of whitewashing, I'll say up front, I disagree. Matt Damon plays a white dude who tries to get to China to trade for gunpowder. Despite being a highly skilled mercenary who is mad down with the bow and arrow skills, he loses all but one of his cohort, only to be taken into custody by the Chinese Army at the eponymous wall.

Without revealing any spoilers, I'll say that Damon's stonehearted mercenary is ultimately swayed by the amazing qualities of the Chinese people to connect and fight a shared enemy. He learns that there is much more to life than just fighting for food and money. I'm not suggesting that China has been this oasis from pain and fear and life as we now it all this time, nor that communism is a fix for our ails, but this is what drives a primary element of Chinese culture if you're going to watch these films.

On that note, if you want to see some subtly subversive Chinese film making, check out Chronicles of The Ghostly Tribe. On its surface, it looks like a love letter to the Cultural Revolution, but just check out the overtly hyper-positive attitudes and glassy-eyed recitation that makes it more clownish than oppressive. It's not a bad film, either.

The only thing I want to say now is that you should give this film a chance. It's an epic fantasy that might even be a little too short to tell the entire tale, but it works. You can even skip the beginning bit right up until they get to the Great Wall. That's where I would have started the film with a short, explanatory preamble.