Flashback: Star Trek (2009)

Time to add another entry to my flashback series, and I'm going with J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of Star Trek I've seen every episode of The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine, every movie and decent amount of the Original Series (though I haven't actually sat down and watched every episode, yet), but even though it's blasphemous to die-hard fans, the newest film is my personal favorite. The biggest reason for that is the amount of storytelling that takes place in this film. True, it lacks much of the socio-political and cultural commentary that made Star Trek what it is, but unlike the other series that had years to develop their characters and find a mix that worked (goodbye Tasha Yar, hello Seven of Nine), the new film had two hours and 122 pages to do the same amount of work. True, it had some audience recognition on its side, but a quick look at the box office numbers will show just how far this film outstripped the previous entries in the franchise. There're good reasons for that, and I'll take a look at them after the break.

Week Links: Jetpacks, Raptors, Blu-ray

Time for another batch of Monday links. I'm working on getting another Flashback post up soon, but for now, you get this collection of news from the internet.

Week Links: Nerds, Spielberg and Abrams

Following up on last week's resolution to post links weekly, here's some things that stood out to me. Click ahead to see them.

Another movie roundup

It looks like I have another bunch of unexplained films on my 2011 ranking list, and since one of those films was really good, while another was quite a disappointment, I feel like explaining why I've ranked them the way I did.

Also, certain films have undergone a considerable shift from their original rankings, and deserve to have their fall pointed out in excruciating detail. Click ahead for more.

Another collection of links

Pandas and Airships and movie stuff. These are some interesting things from the interwebs, that I think that you should probably be aware of. I have a new goal to make this a weekly feature, we'll see how that goes.

A reading recap for August

So, in the joy of getting out of school, I limited my reading strictly to comic books for June and July (okay, that wasn't actually the reason, but let's go with it anyway). I was kicked back into gear around the start of August, and that helped lead to this post. Now I still fully intend to read 1984, but my local library isn't cooperating, so I'm going to start with Dune instead. I'm currently a few chapters in, and I'll have a post about my impressions soon. In the meantime, here's what I read over the course of August.

Review: Ultimate Comics Hawkeye #1

I don't buy many new comics. I generally wait for the collected editions so I can read through four-to-six issues without advertisements or a long wait between issues, but a new limited series about one the best characters in Marvel's Ultimate Universe was too intriguing for me to pass up, and I tracked down Ultimate Comics Hawkeye #1 at my closest comic store. The Ultimate version of Hawkeye, unlike Marvel's mainstream version of the character, has a lot more in common with Bullseye and the Punisher, he also happens to be Ultimate Nick Fury's right-hand man on the Avengers and Ultimates, the Ultimates being the Ultimate Universe version of the Avengers, with the Ultimate Avengers being the equivalent to the Secret Avengers in the mainstream continuity. So far, I've used the word Ultimate nine times in this post, and if you understood the previous sentance, you win nerd points.

Spoilers to follow.

"Avengers" videos and Marvel's first short

It's been longer than I'd like since my last post, but I'm writing that off to a busy week and rectifying the situation with some stuff about The Avengers. First off, there's some sweat promo art featuring the entire team and Loki. You can look at them here, here, and here (Spidermedia via /Film). Next, the first Marvel short film, titled "The Consultant" has been released. It features the estimable Agent Coulson and ties The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man to The Avengers. The full short is embedded after the jump, and there's a couple of other videos too, so click ahead.